Mari Eastman
Women’s College
August 24 to September 5, 2013
Monte Clark Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of paintings and sculptures by LA-based artist Mari Eastman. The works included in Women’s College (a title alluding to Eastman’s time at Smith College) present imagery referencing Manet paintings, fashion magazines, and personal relics of the artist, the combination of which offers a loose observational and biographical narrative.
Though many of Eastman’s works are created on a classical canvas stretcher, she pushes past the restraints of any one medium, utilizing different materials and mixing them freely to build imagery both tactile and subtle. She uses mediums such as flashe (a matte, vinyl-based paint), tape, ballpoint pen, glitter, and modeling compounds to create her multidimensional works. Matching her innovative use of materials, Eastman’s installation of works in the gallery setting do not follow a classical order; paintings hang at various heights amongst sculptural pieces displayed in organic formation.
Mari Eastman holds an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. She has exhibited at the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angles), The Orange County Museum of Art (Newport Beach), Cherry and Martin Gallery (Los Angeles), Victoria Miro (London), Colette (Paris), Barbara Gladstone Gallery (New York), the Berkeley Museum of Art, and numerous other venues. Her work has been included in such publications as Modern Painters, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Flash Art, The New Yorker, and on artforum.com. Eastman lives and works in Los Angeles.