Leonardo Nierman, Paintings & Sculpture
Mike Lash, Stuff

* Artists' Reception Friday, January 8th, 2010 - 6-8PM
* Exhibition dates: Friday, January 8th to February 5th, 2010.
* Gallery hours: Monday - Saturday 11-7, Sun. 12-6.
* Gallery located on the NE corner of 20th and 7th Ave.
* Nearest Subway: C, E exit 23rd @ 8th Ave., 1,9 exit 23rd @ 7th Ave.
* Contact: Michael Lyons Wier, gallery@LyonsWierGallery.com

Lyons Wier Gallery is pleased to announce Paintings & Sculpture by Leonardo Nierman.

At 78 years old, Mexican artist Leonardo Nierman is still in his studio every day, painting and synthesizing five decades of personal investigations into physics, mathematics, color theory and music.

The Abstract Expressionist's work has played a leading role in the extraordinary drama that is modern Mexican art. Nierman started to exhibit at a time when art in Mexico was undergoing a period of drastic change--the influence of the long-established Muralists was being challenged by the ideas of a new generation open to modernist internationalism.

In this newest body of work, Nierman hearkens back to his Mexican predecessors, as well as to the modern lessons of cubism and abstraction, combining Western artistic revolutions. His hyper-real paintings of crumbled paper employ many old tropes yet read surprising fresh as the mind wanders from the sheer technical deftness of hand to the conceptual recognition of subliminal images or words, real or imagined, within these densely rendered compositions.

Nierman's "flame sculptures" echo the elements of infinity, straight and curved lines, and reflected light that rise toward the sky. "A candle is constantly creating sculptures," says Nierman. "The form of the flame is always perfect, [it] represents hope, light out of darkness, a form of happiness". His sculptures combine the forces of nature and intellect, referencing contrasting aspects of the physical world released as turbulent energy and then frozen into intricate structures whose forms are a visible expression of physicality.

Leonardo Nierman's work is featured in major collections around the world including the Vatican Museum of Contemporary Art & Vatican Gardens, Rome, Italy, the Museums of Modern Art, Haifa and Tel Aviv, Israel, the Museum of Modern Art, Mexico City, Mexico, the Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art, Madrid, Spain, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, Harvard University Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts, Ml, the Albert Einstein Institute of New York, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives in Mexico.

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Lyons Wier Gallery is pleased to announce Stuff by Mike Lash.

Mike Lash's new work is a marked departure from his well-known figurative work. While he maintains his wry sense of humor without losing the base banality he has become known for, Lash's new work is less focused on image and concentrates on ideas or "stuff".

Whilst his works still may have renderings of things one may recognize, Lash moves towards a more abstract, if not conceptual, picture plane. Many of the pieces are in fact simply text-based works.

The artist pushes the viewer to expect the unexpected, taking the viewer between the boundaries of hard science and the inner angst of the individual. His paintings maintain a ready-made feel as well as the immediate gesture of his rendering style.

Lash flatly proposes in his artist statement: "I make stuff, mostly paintings and drawings. The stuff I make kind of documents things I'm personally interested in and think about. Sometimes people like them. I hope you like them."

Mike Lash was included in "To Have it About You: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection," Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum University of Minnesota and "Lies for Leo, A Book Signing and Exhibition" at Agnes b. Tokyo, Japan, & Agnes b. Madison Ave, New York. He is the author of "Lies for Leo", "Pervert" and "Draw Your Own Conclusions." Lash received a Master of Arts from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb in 1985. He currently resides in New York.

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Lyons Wier Gallery - 175 Seventh Ave @ 20th St., NYC 10011 - (212)242.6220

gallery@lyonswiergallery.com • Lyons Wier Gallery

lyonswiergallery.com

For more info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net