
This February, Hauser & Wirth West Hollywood will proudly present Pat Steir’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition in over three decades. Renowned for her pioneering approach to painting which synthesises conceptual art, figuration and abstraction, the exhibition will debut a suite of canvases which have as their origin Steir’s recollection of the light in Los Angeles, the ocean and sky she experienced while teaching at CalArts in the 1970s. With their reverberating tones, the works in ‘Painted Rain’ are united by Steir’s exploration of blue. In varied scales, these deep azure, multi-layered works extend Steir’s bravura Waterfall series, the artist’s signature streaming, pouring and layering technique through which Steir intentionally cedes control of the result, allowing the paint to create its own image. These works reveal the expressive power of her art, and that Steir is one of the most original and impactful contemporary painters.
Complementing her paintings on view in West Hollywood, Hauser & Wirth’s Downtown Los Angeles art centre will feature a special presentation of Steir’s limited-edition prints, produced in collaboration with Crown Point Press, highlighting the artist’s longstanding explorations with printmaking and its importance within her practice.
Press release courtesy Hauser & Wirth
Among the great innovators of contemporary painting, Pat Steir first came to prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s for her iconographic canvases and immersive wall drawings. By the late 1980s, her inventive approach to painting—the rigorous pouring technique seen in her Waterfall works, in which she harnessed the forces of gravity and gesture to achieve works of astonishing lyricism—attracted substantial critical acclaim. Informed by a deep engagement with art history and Eastern philosophy, and a passion for artistic advocacy in the both the visual and literary realms, Steir’s storied five-decade career continues to reach new heights through an intrepid commitment to material exploration and experimentation.





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