Andrew Lyght: Painting Structures

April 19 – June 16, 2018

SkotonGallery is pleased to present “Painting Structures?, an exhibition of recent mixed media work by the Guyana-born, dualncitizen of Canada and US, New York-based artist Andrew Lyght. This is his firstnsolo in New York since his highly acclaimed survey exhibition titled Full Circle at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York at NewnPaltz in 2016. The reception will be on Thursday, April 19, 6-8pm.

Andrew Lyght is best known for his elegant abstractions with strong sense of linear designnand vibrant colors in different media. His work is informed by a sophisticatedndiscourse on traditional philosophical concepts and deep understanding of artnhistorical precedents. He is aware of the interplay ofnintention and accident, curiosity and discovery as well as the ability tonreduce forms and ideas to their essence. He draws no hierarchical distinctions among different media, rather eachnfacilitate a variety of ways to rigorously engage with the conceptual andnaesthetic underpinnings of his work. Lyght draws on a life-long exploration of free-handndrawn lines, plane, volume and color to depict pictorial space, and seeks to find an alternative aesthetics andndiscursive frame work that mines the microcosm of his culture for symbols thatncan be universally understood. Asnstated by Barbara Rose, the esteemed art historian in her essay for thenartist?s recent Full Circlenretrospective at the Dorsky Museum: AndrewnLyght is an unusual artist in that he experienced both the archaic roots ofnmodernism during his boyhood as well as the way in which modernism foundnfreshness in non-Western and archaic culture.

Included in this exhibition is a selection of 10 works from the Painting Structures series and 6 works from the Blackboard Walls series, all dated 2017-2018. Working within the rectangular formatnof the picture and the view finder, Lyght exploits his mastery of the nuancesnof color and geometric abstraction by staining the wooden painting structuresnwith oil stick, a logical and beautiful evolution in his abiding quest to pushnthe pictorial support to the fore. Again, working within the rectangular format,nLyght has created objects outnof the works on paper for the Blackboardnseries by building a wood structure for them to slip into and slide to one side.nWhen not exhibited, these works on paper simply slip out and are stored in anflat file. Byninventively handling his material within a formalist framework and a highlyndeveloped experimental approach to making art he creates work that isnunorthodox, persistently innovative and infused with boundless energy. 

Andrew Lyght was born 1949 in Georgetown, Guyana, South America, andnstudied in a master/apprenticeship format with the legendary artist and mentornEdward R. Burrowes (1903-1966), who gave free art education at his WorkingnPeople Art Class established in the late 1940s. After winning Guyana’s top artnprizes at the age of 19, he moved to Montreal, where he lived for eight yearsnbefore relocating to New York City. He had his first solo show at the NassaunCounty Museum, which was followed by commissions for IBM and other corporatenclients; his works are in several collections including The Pompidou Center,nParis, France; The World Bank, Washington DC; Goldman Sachs, New York, OmniconnGroup, Inc, New York and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass. He isna recipient of several grants including the prestigious Barnett and Annalee NewmannFoundation award and the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation award. For annartist whose resourcefulness as a designer, builder and artist is quite fluid,nand dates back to his childhood days in Guyana, he has emphatically declarednthat: I have never divided nor made andistinction between life and career in art. It is not a career for me, it is anlife.