LOS ANGELES, CA.- LAUNCH LA presents Adventures in Suntan Alley by Marion Lane. This latest exhibition is a delightfully curious interpretation of Los Angeles' unique visual brand. Though Lane's paintings look something like hybrids between amoeba DNA and corner-shop candies, they contain hints of all the vital ingredients of the city's make-up, from sun and sea to concrete and steel - rendered with such hypnotic appeal that it's hard to look away.
The title of the show refers, in part, to Lane's workspace: an outdoor painting studio with ten foot tall brick walls, big enough to accommodate the exhibition's forty-six inch square paintings. This title is also a nod to any encounter, however brief, with the elemental Los Angeles, a place where sun, color and topography enter the vocabulary of Southern California life. Lane's paintings strive to capture these penetrating moments, when the clash between man-made Los Angeles and the rugged wilderness beneath exposes a startling and revelatory beauty. Though the sun features prominently, these moments aren't typical post-card scenes. If anything, Lane is more interested in the accidentally artful - "when the traffic light is startlingly beautiful against the expansive California sky or the orange traffic cone coordinates wildly with shiny metallic machinery."
Despite this scenic focus, Lane's paintings are not identifiable as landscapes. She does not concern herself with capturing actual appearances, but rather strives for an impression of exceptional instances of atmosphere, light and texture. Her studio provides abundance: the invading waves of sunshine and light create what Lane calls "a conflation of extreme beauty and slight radioactivity." This quality of "radioactivity" is also evident in her paints, having been rendered either impossibly bright or faded, as if bleached by the sun's heat. This brightness mirrors the optimism and cartoon-like quality of her vision, providing a means of showcasing the best facets of life in metropolitan Los Angeles. Lane's characters are an endless variety of three-dimensional shapes on patterned backgrounds, resembling living organisms and vibrant ecosystems rather than static images. Their vertical stripes, pastel pinks and earthy browns, bubbling purples and icy-blues prove even more immersive than landscapes. They are everything beautiful condensed into an alchemical essence of color and light.
Marion Lane resides and works in Los Angeles.
For the last decade her work has been shown extensively across California, from Los Angeles to San Francisco and everywhere in between. Her art has been featured in publications like the Artweek, ArtScene and the LA Weekly.
Her exhibitions are an outlet for her immense curiosity about the human eye and its systems for organizing color and form. For her audience these explorations have been abundantly fruitful.
