Textures Of Light
A good friend of mine, local Oakland artist Scott Reilly, finally has his own website -- ScottReillyArt.com -- that shows a range of his work from wall-sized abstract paintings through illuminated pieces to earlier semi-representational canvases.Scott's art has been evolving lately through a series of illuminated pieces or lightfields: textured, subtly-geometric back-lit monochromatic colourfields often many square metres in size. These pieces also increasingly explore the interaction between the lightfields themselves and the surrounding box or installation space in ways that highlight both the internal and external geometries and lightplays and their relationships with each other. Above all, though, they're simply overwhelming in real life -- an evocative combination of colour, scale, and intricate semi-random patterning that keeps you glued to the spot in front of them. Unlike a lot of Oakland art these pieces are neither theory-driven nor hectoring social conscience pieces; nor are they tweely-personal or self-absorbed. And yes, they're a lot more effective in real life than on a web site (yes, I have a couple of early pieces in my studio).
Over the years I've watched the illuminated pieces develop from a tentative set of rough experiments with lightboxes done as a diversion from the paintings in his old rat-infested West Oakland studio, to being the beautifully-crafted large-scale pieces that are the main focus of his work in his new studio just off the industrial end of West Grand.
(Part of Oaktown).
2 Comments:
hmm, nice art work. similar to the work of a friend of mine but mr reilly's is much more fully realized.
It's a shame Scott's work doesn't translate to the web very well -- it's bloody gorgeous in real life (once you get past the haze of cigarette smoke in his studio...). Oh well. At least he's almost making a living from being an artist now, which is more than I can say for most of the artists I know.
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