Valley Step
MASSIMODECARLO is pleased to present Aaron Garber-Maikovska’s first solo exhibition with our Hong Kong gallery, entitled Valley Step. The exhibition comprises six of the artist's fluted poly works, distinguished this time by a textural yellow-ochre background that emanates warmth and evokes the arid southern California landscape where the artist resides.
Living amongst the endless views of the Los Angeles area and surrounded by majestic mountains and boundless desert landscapes, the artist draws inspiration from the vast terrain for the works on display. The exhibition is a merging of disparate worlds, a synthesis of the personal and the universal, the mythical and the concrete, all intertwined within one presentation.
The exhibition presents the organic growth of Garber-Maikovska's artistry, whose practice extends beyond traditional painting, embracing somatic expression as the heart of his creative process. He channels his body into an instrument of profound introspection and metaphysical exploration, surrendering himself to the flow of intuition and impulse.
Each of the six fluted poly canvases in the exhibition is anchored by an underlying black armature line, which the artist conceives as characters that he improvises with. This recurring motif imbues the works with a sense of movement as if the characters are engaged in a choreography or a conversation that unfolds before our eyes.
The artist's dark lines/characters act as conduits for the vibrant frequencies of colour that pulsate throughout each piece. These lines and characters’ silhouettes merge with the surrounding colours, forming a unified, breathing body. The fields of hues, or passages as the artist refers to them, are dynamic and interdependent, vying for space and interlocking with each other. They radiate an almost primal energy that reverberates from one work to the next, creating a sense of continuity and interconnectedness that underscores the whole exhibition.
The artist's creative process is a fusion of physicality and intuition. The canvases start off on the ground, where the artist lays down his background before meticulously crafting the black line that acts as a leading force for the composition. Then, he continues the canvases vertically, building them up with bars of vibrant colours and textured brushstrokes. Through the use of homemade oil bars, Garber-Maikovska can articulate a specificity of colour and light that embodies his visual language.
Through their dynamic, pulsing energy, the paintings in Valley Step offer a window into the artist's creative process and surroundings. As viewers immerse themselves in the world of Garber-Maikovska's paintings, they engage with the interplay of colour, light, and movement that brings them to life, offering a profoundly rich and communicative experience.
The Artist
Aaron Garber-Maikovska was born in Washington D.C., in 1978). He lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
Aaron Garber-Maikovska's work pushes the boundaries of traditional painting as his somatic experience heavily informs his creative process. His artistic practice is a reflection of the interdependence between his physical body and the work he produces. The Los Angeles-based artist employs various techniques to produce richly textured and vibrantly coloured abstract compositions. In his paintings, he creates fields of colour that blend and interact with each other, juxtaposed with a single continuous line. He describes this line as a character that he improvises with, bringing the bi-dimensional surface to life in a way that echoes his somatic approach to creating art. Garber-Maikovska's approach to painting is deeply intuitive, with the artist surrendering himself to the flow of his intuition and allowing his impulses to guide his hand. His fluted poly works become a physical manifestation of his innermost thoughts and feelings, with each brush stroke representing a gesture imbued with a personal yet universal meaning.
Garber-Maikovska's work is in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis;Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Long Museum, Shanghai.