KM Fine Arts Announces AN OCEAN BENEATH SEA

KM Fine Arts is pleased to announce An Ocean Beneath the Sea, a solo exhibition of new hyperrealist paintings by Ramsey Dau, on view from November 3, 2016 - December 23, 2016 at the gallery's West Hollywood location at 814 N. La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90069. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 3, from 6-9pm with the artist in attendance. A catalog will accompany the exhibition and feature an essay by Arty Nelson.

For Dau's second solo exhibition with KM Fine Arts he will feature ten new paintings, along with seven collages which served as compositional studies and his first three dimensional sculpture. Modern Painters will feature a biopic in their December issue on the occasion of this exhibition.

Ramsey Dau's paintings exist in a space of tension between intuitive, subconscious composition and an intensely focused painterly practice. Informed by a collage aesthetic, his meticulously rendered paintings may appear to be multimedia works at first glance. Upon closer inspection, subtle hints of the artist's hand can be unearthed

The components found in Dau's paintings are culled from his personal collection of imagery, text, knowledge of Art History, and his studies on human neuropsychology. His visual source material is in this body of work is amassed from local flyers, magazines, and construction paper. Dau's practice is based on aesthetics as dictated by what he refers to as his "internal compass". Contrived works are of no interest to him creatively; instead, his work serves as a minimalist roadmap to the subconscious mind. He explains:
"At the end of the day, it comes down to aesthetics; I'm not trying to make some over statement or narrative in the work. It's more about listening to my internal compass in the collection and composition of subject matter, without an intellectual intention... Many of the works, after the fact, feel like they have a point of view and I like that the viewers are open to come to multiple interpretations about what the work is about."

The most apparent source of tension in Dau's work can be understood when considering his technical approach to the physical act of painting alongside his intuitive composition process. Works in this exhibition range in size from 36 x 36 inches to 72 x 72 inches, each hand painted with painstaking precision. Critic Art Nelson best explains this dichotomy in his recent essay:

"Dau's many-stepped process offers the eye much to take in formally. Plainly put, the paintings are cool as shit to look at which as far as criterion goes beats everything. But beyond that-or rather, underneath that-lurks a powerful yin and yang; on one side, is the artist's commitment to craft and refine a vibrant piece of art while, on the other side, is the artist's conviction to protect, from even himself, the mysterious genesis of his compositions, the resulting fruits of Dau's ambitions endeavor look and feel like nothing else presently being produced."

About KM Fine Arts
With locations in Chicago on Oak Street and West Hollywood in Los Angeles, KM Fine Arts, directed by curator Ana Hollinger, has been critically acclaimed for its museum-quality exhibitions since 2006. The gallery specializes in American and European artists of early modernism, postwar, and contemporary art-including the movements of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. The gallery program includes works by Georg Baselitz, Norman Bluhm, Fernando Botero, James Brooks, Alexander Calder, John Chamberlain, Michael Goldberg, Hans Hofmann, Robert Indiana, Wolf Kahn, Alex Katz, Julie Mehretu, Joan Miro, and Lucien Smith, along with contemporary Ramsey Dau, Brandon Boyd, Erik Brunetti, Carole Feuerman, Kim Gottlieb-Walker, Dana Louise Kirkpatrick, Gary Lang, Victor Matthews, Geoff Moore, Ruth Pastine, Wilson Schlamme, Bernie Taupin, and Carinthia West.

Gallery Inquiries
KM Fine Arts | Los Angeles
814 North La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Phone: 310.854.0540
email: info@kmfinearts.com
web: www.kmfinearts.com
Hours: Tues - Sat 11am - 6pm