G. Lewis Clevenger
In Reclaiming My Time, G. Lewis Clevenger presents a show about his own relationship and trajectory within abstract painting. From the gestures of the American post-war abstract expressionists to the cooler color field painters, Clevenger traces what inspired him at a young age to paint.
Clevenger is known for his dynamic paintings of hard-edged abstracted forms, textural surfaces, and curvilinear lines. The artist combines media to create a compositional harmony between the rigidity of one shape and the irregularity of another. Referring to moments that are unplanned but experienced, he draws inspiration from within, collecting a visual repository of images drawn from memory, recollection, reality, and dreams.
How about the combination of G. Lewis Clevenger and Elizabeth Malaska at the Russo Lee Gallery? Clevenger’s acrylic abstract paintings lure the viewer with layers of shapes and lines and color that lead deeper and deeper, pulling on the viewer’s own looming memories of forms and lines. Malaska’s work combines various media, textures, and patterns, somewhat reminiscent of Matisse, except in her paintings, the female models are often armed and dangerous.