NEW YORK, NY.- On Stellar Rays announces the opening — on Sunday, March 2, 2014 — of Liam Everett’s solo exhibition, Montolieu.
Montolieu presents new large-scale paintings that — like Everett’s earlier body of work — are generated through a labor-intensive practice determined by temporal, material, and other self-imposed obstacles. Everett works on unstretched linen, building up layers of oil and acrylic paint in elaborate compositions that reflect the natural tendencies of the artists’ hand until a thick and uniform surface of paint is achieved. The additive process — the straight-forward act of painting — is then destabilized, by stripping and sanding the surface until the linen’s fibers are exposed, hinting at the paintings origins and, more importantly, baring evidence of deliberate and repetitive actions that seemingly continue beyond the artist’s hand and continuously resist stasis.
Everett acknowledges that the works are complete when they begin to appear detached or foreign, and are then stretched outside the studio. The finished paintings’ titles question the notion of positional permanence; they are all Untitled, but also reference remote locations in parentheses. They advocate a sort of practical existence, paintings that continue to manifest themselves as such — devoid of image or referent.
This current development in Everett’s work is undoubtedly influenced by his workspace north of San Francisco, a wild and often harsh environment that insists on a more corporeal mode of working than a purely cerebral one. It is here that Everett pushes his work to the edge of instability, a setting not unlike sites of extreme climatic variation, where tides, temperatures and, rainfall test the threshold of inhabitants’ strength. Everett similarly pushes the work to its liminal edge, where it persists, charged with a palpable and exacting energy that reasserts itself recurrently with each new experience of the work.
Liam Everett currently lives and works in San Francisco. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at Altman Siegel Gallery, San Francisco (2012); Paul Kasmin, New York (2011); White Columns, New York (2009). Recent group shows include Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens, Greece (2013); Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna, Austria (2013); On Stellar Rays, New York (2013); "K" curated by Juan Gaitan at the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2012); Josh Lilley, London (2012); 303 Gallery, New York (2010). Also known for his performance-based work, Everett has staged pieces in San Francisco, at ArtBasel 2009 and 2012, and at 179 Canal St, New York. Everett has recently produced a multiple with Paulson Bott Press in Berkeley, CA. He is also currently an affiliate artist at the Headlands Center for the Arts and was the recipient of the 2013 Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute and a 2013 Artadia San Francisco Council Awardee.
