JOHN OKULICK at NANCY HOFFMAN GALLERY
March 25 to April 26, 2000
For the past 25 years, John Okulick's materials have orbited around a core of wood: natural sanded pine, wood that is scored with a drawing line, wood that is painted in color, wood that is gold-leafed, wood that is juxtaposed with metal. During these 25 years a recurring theme in the artist's work has been illusion.
Okulick's new pieces are more abstract. There is more layering in both wall sculptures and free-standing pieces, and a perspective that does not always tally with "true" perspective rendering. Unlike Okulick's earlier works where tromp l'oeil and illusion were primary issues, the new works push and pull at this concept, making the viewer believe that what one sees is "correct" perspective.
New too is the artist's focus on a metal grid which functions as a structural anchor for many of the pieces. With the grid the artist references "lines of communication," and technology with its ever-evolving nature. Like the transformation in communications, Okulick transforms his materials. He cuts lines into flat surfaces, he breaks shapes that would otherwise have remained solid units, he curves ribbons of wood--a material not known for its bending, twisting qualities--in surprising fashion he bends up a corner creating a shape almost bone-like in appearance.
New too is Okulick's interest in tension: between beautiful materials and spatial incongruities; between sleek, slick metal grids and wood that is scored and cut; between colors of nature on sculpture that is not a representation thereof, between lines of communication and the structure that holds them together. Color in the new work is softer, related to color from nature or flowers. Some of the pieces contain an abstract shape that brings to mind the shape of a butterfly--in no way a literal reference --a serendipitous happening.
Okulick's free-standing pieces are filled with movement. They have myriad geometric forms interlocking and twisting through space, all held in check by an underlying structure, often a grid. Like the inner workings of a machine that present an anathema of activity to the untrained eye, the viewer marvels at the complexity Okulick presents in an ever-moving yet effortlessly organized way.
John Okulick was born in New York City in 1947. He received a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.F.A. from the University of California at Irvine.
Okulick's work has been exhibited widely in this country at the Albuquerque Museum of Art, New Mexico; The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; California Art Center, Pasadena; Center for the Arts, Vero Beach, Florida; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Hawaii; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana; The Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Laguna Beach Museum of Art, California; La Jolla Museum of Art, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, California; The Oakland Museum, California; Palm Springs Desert Museum, California; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; San Diego Museum of Art, California; The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio, among others; and abroad at La Foret Museum, Tokyo and Nagoya City Museum, Nagoya, Japan.
The artist's work is represented in many major public collections, among them The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Memphis Museum of Art, Tennessee; Il Museo delle Ceramiche Grazia, Deruta, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, California; The Oakland Museum, California; Palm Springs Desert Museum, California; Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona; San Francisco Museum of Art, California; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond.
His work has been commissioned for the Los Angeles County Transportation Authority, California; Culver City Police Department, California; Homestead Village, Brea, California; Los Angeles Harbor Building, World Port Los Angeles, International Center, San Pedro, California; McCormick Convention Complex Collection, Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, Chicago; Museum of Science and Industry, Los Angeles; City of Reno, Regional Transportation Office and Conference Center, Nevada; The Ronald Reagan State Building, Los Angeles, California; Van Nuys State Office Building, California.
John Okulick resides in California.
For additional information and/or photographs, please call 212-966-6676.
