Angela Perko
🔴Woman with a Red Earring, Reading, 2013
157335
OPENING RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013, FROM 5 - 8PM
Sullivan Goss presents their fifth solo exhibition for Santa Barbara based painter, Angela Perko. Riffing on early Modernist approaches as diverse as Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Cubism, Perko renders a world composed of highly stylized, rhythmic forms. The resulting images evoke a sense of movement that suggests that reality itself is too dynamic to paint as a static image.
Having developed into one of the community’s most distinctive voices in just over a decade, Perko’s exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog featuring the newest works in the exhibition as well as an overview of her evolution over the last ten years. ANGELA PERKO, her eponymous catalog, will feature remarks by Contemporary Curator Susan Bush and renowned songwriter and collector Will Jennings. In addition, there is a lush selection of 51 illustrations. Copies of the limited edition book will be available for sale at the opening reception on 1st Thursday.
In her newest body of work, the artist made a pronounced move towards the figure with a series of five large scale paintings of women. Drawing on art history, poetry, and prose, as well as her thoughts on the role of women in both life and art, Perko’s new figurative works at this scale may well challenge people’s perception of her and her work. She has been painting the figure for years, but her representations of the female form are often her most abstracted works, and they have never been seen at this scale.
There will also be a lively selection of the artist’s architectural landscapes. Santa Barbara’s architectural landmarks have all been recast: the Courthouse, the Mission, the Arlington, the Granada, Saint Anthony’s Seminary, the Church of Christ Scientist, Trinity Church, Plaza Rubio, and Crocker Row. Santa Barbara, the small, quiet, elegant city erupts into a brio of color and bold, kinetic shapes. Angela Perko studied with landscape painter Michael Drury before beginning her exhibition career 11 years ago.
In the ranks of regional painters with some gallery-track record, and therefore public awareness, Angela Perko is perched in a creative corner all her own. A vibrant stylist with nods to art history and no fear of color or formal bump and bustle, Ms. Perko has one of the more instantly recognizable styles of any artist calling Santa Barbara home.
