Sullivan Goss will present a solo exhibit for Santa Barbara artist María G. Rendón called Holy Water, March 1-Aprill 22 at the gallery, 11 E. Anapamu St., Santa Barbara. Rendón will be present at the 1st Thursday reception on March 7.
The exhibit takes its name partly from a 1977 essay by Joan Didion and partly from the artist’s interest in both the local landscape and the essential conditions of human existence.
Following Rendón’s nearly sold out 2021 exhibition Rain at Sullivan Goss and a 2022 solo exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, Holy Water will feature a suite of 17 enigmatic new paintings she has worked on over the past few years.
Rendón said she prefers painting on wood panels and on paper that have a bit of a raw edge. She works slowly in part because she doesn’t want to overwork her paintings or make them feel overdetermined. Some of her small paintings take over a year to produce.
Her work is noted for its sophisticated color sense and for the myriad textures that she achieves from her particular mixtures of acrylic, flashe, and water. She thins out her paints with water, which creates a number of surface effects that recall watercolor painting while at the same time exhibiting a density of color more often associated with oil painting.
The compositions may reference a particular landscape Rendón has encountered in the hills above Santa Barbara or in her travels abroad, but she may also be responding to a particular shape, a color relationship, or something she’s been reading.
A 40 page exhibition catalog will be available for sale.
Rendón works and lives in Santa Barbara and maintains an active presence in the L.A. art community. She completed a BFA at the Universidad Anáhuac Mexico City and a second at the Art Center College of Design.
While Rendón was earning her MFA at UCSB in 2013, Sullivan Goss held its first significant exhibition for her called JUST BETWEEN US. In 2021, the gallery held another solo exhibition for her called Rain.