| Ivan Morley's paintings are inspired by the | | | | textures and varying opacities of these surfaces |
| frontiersman's lore of scrappy, dried-out California | | | | contribute to the work's material diversity; we get |
| towns with names like San Gabriel, El Monte, and | | | | blocky quiltlike patterns, floral motifs, and |
| Tehachapi. Such locales and their all-but-forgotten | | | | faux-naif, cartoonish illustrations on tie-dyed |
| (and possibly artist-fabricated) histories--if you can | | | | grounds. Slipped into the mix are some |
| call tales of memorable cockfights and | | | | Indonesian-style batiks, which Morley says he |
| observations on the behavior of squirrels | | | | learned about from LA stoner culture."Lab 2001 ," |
| histories-seem unlikely sources of inspiration. Yet, | | | | the group of seven paintings in this exhibition, |
| from a mass of myth, a dose of his own vivid | | | | recreates an explosion that took place in the |
| imagination, and a range of raw material, Morley | | | | 1850s at a site identified on a wall panel as "Bill's |
| has created some mighty idiosyncratic pictures. | | | | Asphaltum-Camphene Lab." Bill, we learn, had |
| The show as a whole was pulled together with a | | | | luckily stepped out for a drink when the accident |
| keen sense of detail, with texts telling a few of | | | | occurred. In depicting seven phases of the |
| the stories rendered carefully on the walls.Ivan | | | | explosion, the paintings function like animation cels. |
| Morley's complex, color-saturated paintings are | | | | They stand alone, but can also be experienced as |
| visual extrapolations made within an associative | | | | a lightning-quick montage of jumpcuts. Through |
| game that starts with history. Born in Burbank, | | | | this approach, Morley avoids the dichotomy |
| Calif. in the mid-1960s--seemingly a time and place | | | | between abstract and figurative painting.Ivan |
| of little history--Morley begins his work by | | | | Morley's Tehachepi takes its title from the name |
| excavating obscure anecdotes from Los Angeles's | | | | of a small town near Fresno California, in which a |
| mid-19th-century frontier past. By painting | | | | ranch was recently purchased to be the site of a |
| exploratively on a variety of surfaces, including | | | | Norbertine convent; a true contemporary story, |
| textured glass, wood panels, batik and dyed | | | | which in Morley's hands harks back to the days of |
| canvas, Morley expands the scope of his | | | | untamed savage territories yet to be conquest. |
| investigation beyond the literalness of recorded | | | | Rendered over the lustrous sheen of aluminium |
| fact into a swirling, hallucinatory mass. | | | | sheeting, Morley's abstract pattern is made from |
| To create his paintings, Morley applies dyed fabric, | | | | cloth and oil paint. Rendered with comic detail, |
| wax, varnish, dense patches of colored thread, | | | | each round form is given anthropomorphic effect. |
| and, occasionally, oil paint to a range of supports | | | | Idiosyncratic and naïve, his TexMex |
| that includes denim, glass, linen, and canvas. | | | | coloured swatches flock in huddled congregation, |
| Sometimes he paints on glass, peels the image | | | | each an intrinsic, yet individual value of the whole. |
| off, and affixes it to another support. The | | | | |