CSUCI Exhibitions Gallery (Camarillo)

Previous Exhibitions: Jack Reilly 3.5 - Decades of Art October 8 - November 6, 2009

The evolution of Jack Reilly's work can be traced back to the early 1970s when he studied art in France at the Paris American Academy. In the late seventies, his representational painting style gave way to abstraction, as his work reflected various influences of prominent artists of the time including Frank Stella, Elsworth Kelly, Ron Davis, Jules Olitsky, and Trevor Bell. Each of these painters dealt with aspects of physical structure, color and pictorial space; elements that converged in Reilly's early abstract work. In 1978, shortly after receiving his MFA degree from Florida State University, Reilly moved to Los Angeles and emerged on the L. A. art scene with his early abstract paintings that commented on numerous formal and pictorial issues of the era. By combining illusionary space with hard-edge and color field painting, Reilly created a unique synthesis of geometric abstraction and illusive pictorial depth; which was sometimes refered to as "Abstract Illusionism." In April 1979 Reilly's work was exhibited in his first solo show at the Molly Barnes Gallery in Los Angeles. Simultaneously, curator Donald Brewer of USC Fisher Gallery included Reilly's painting in a major museum exhibition entitled "The Reality of Illusion," an international survey of "Trompe l' oeil" art. The exhibition debuted at the Denver Art Museum and traveled the United States for two years thereafter.

By 1980, Reilly's new shaped-canvas paintings were represented by galleries in major American cities including the Molly Barnes Gallery in Los Angeles, Aaron Berman Gallery in New York, Foster Goldstrom Fine Arts in San Francisco among others nationwide. Articles and reviews on Reilly's paintings were subsequently published in Arts Magazine, Artweek, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other art publications. In 1981, Reilly mounted a total of five separate solo exhibitions, one of which traveled to museums and galleries throughout the United States. Numerous well-known art collectors acquired Reilly's work, and it was Reilly's shaped-canvas paintings that launched him into a new realm of artistic development as he prolifically produced a variety of compositions based around (what he referred to as) "a series of pictorial events." As time progressed, the new paintings showed increasing deviations away from formal compositions and theoretical color, towards more intuitive and expressionistic tendencies. It was during this extremely prolific period that Reilly would develop his unique "signature style," consisting of richly colored line work on complex, geometric shaped canvases. For the next few years, Reilly would produce hundreds of paintings to meet the increasing demand from collectors, galleries and museum exhibitions. In Fall 1983 the Stella Polaris Gallery in downtown Los Angeles presented a solo show of Reilly's new "Dimensional Paintings." Although many collectors seemed weary of the changes in Reilly's new work, when the reviews came in, the new large-scale abstractions were met with critical enthusiasm. A single painting consisted of numerous shaped canvases, layered on top of each other, sometmes up to five canvases deep. The polyester resin-based color bands were created independent from the canvas structures and later attached with Plexiglas rods that physically suspended the color an few inches in front of the canvases. In 1985 art historian Edward Lucie-Smith included Reilly's new dimensional paintings in his book "American Art Now." Comments by Lucie-Smith addressed Reilly's approach to the innovative use of mixed-media materials. There have always been elements of classicism in Jack Reilly's paintings. His work continuously reflects an affinity for structure, balance, and visual order. In October 1989, the Boritzer-Gray Gallery in Los Angeles presented Reilly's "Classic Series" in a solo exhibition. As the art world was entering a new period of pluralism, these eclectic paintings, which combined highly-rendered classical subject matter with geometric abstraction, on layered shaped-canvas structures, were dubbed by a critic as "Quintessentially Post Modern." This description also seemed to summarize the plight of many contemporary artists in search for something new and interesting during a sustained period of eclectic experimentation in painting. The 1990s yielded numerous large-scale public art and corporate commissions with major pieces created for the County of San Diego Public Arts Program and American Airlines at Los Angeles International Airport. In 1993, Mumsey Nemiroff exhibited Reilly's newest group of abstract shaped-canvas paintings in her Los Angeles Gallery. During this prolific period, Reilly's interests and artwork continued to evolve in scope with the inclusion of a wider range of artistic media. By the mid 2000s Reilly's "New Abstraction" series stands out as the quintessential example of his attention to structure and detail, combined with elements of randomness and serendipity. Each painting consists of thousands of brushstrokes, painted in dense acrylic polymers and metallic pigments on a shaped-canvas structure. Compositions are bases upon both mathematical and random geometric designs. Color compositions are emotional, intuitive and theoretical systems, arranged in linear formats that interact with the shape of the canvas. Reilly's signature brushwork has been compared to the visual complexity and visceral quality of Byzantine mosaics and Gothic stained glass. The rich viscosity of Reilly's paint concoction results in fluid, wet-looking and highly reflective surfaces. It could be said that these new paintings pay a playful homage to nineteenth-century Pointillism (without including actual subject matter). On closer investigation, it is evident that these densely-polychromed pieces incorporate a cross-pollination of painting and sculpture. The work reappraises and comments on evolving issues that originated in twentieth-century abstract painting and continue into today's contemporary genres. From the New Abstraction series, 2008 More information available at jackreilly.com

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ABOUT THE GALLERY
CSUCI Exhibitions Gallery -Camarillo is a cultural outreach partnership created between the California State University Channel Islands Art Program and Dr. Michael Czubiak, who has provided CSUCI with gallery space in his building located in "Old Town" Camarillo. In addition to affording CSUCI students with the opportunity to exhibit their art in the local community adjacent the University, the gallery also presents curated shows of regional, national and international artists, providing the University community and Ventura County residents with the opportunity to view quality exhibitions, significant works of art and attend stimulating cultural events.

Location: 92 Palm Drive in “"Old Town"” Camarillo, CA. 93010.
Regular gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
For more information: 805-437-8570, FAX: 805-437-8572
Email: art@csuci.edu