CHARLES ARNOLDI | Outlier | January 17 – February 24, 2024

Scott Richards Contemporary Art is proud to present OUTLIER, its first solo exhibition of recent paintings and sculptures by renowned, Los Angeles abstract painter, Charles Arnoldi. the exhibition opens with a reception for the artist on Saturday, January 20, from 4 – 6 pm, and continues through February 24, 2024.

A versatile, ever evolving artist, known for working with non-traditional materials, Charles Arnoldi carved his own distinctive presence in the realm of contemporary abstraction by successfully blurring the lines between painting and sculpture while maintaining a constantly expanding vocabulary of artistic expression. His continually intuitive and physical approach to making art is evident in OUTLIER, the recent body of work at Scott Richards Contemporary Art.

The artist’s gusto for deconstructing and redefining the pictorial plane is best expressed by two larger-than-life wall reliefs titled Missionary and Urban Planning, that stand at the forefront of the exhibition. Painted on deeply jagged surfaces with brightly colored, thick acrylic paint, these compositions reference the artist’s earlier iconic “chainsaw paintings” but instead of wood, they are carved from light polyethene foam. The other works on display, however, signal a clear departure from his previous explorations and demonstrate a new, free-form approach to both sculpture and painting.

In stark contrast to the monumental wall installations, OUTLIER includes a few recent wood sculptures of modest proportions that bear the mark of the ax and the line of the saw. Beautiful in their simplicity, these wood pieces serve as building blocks to the artist’s recent explorations, while their rough-hewn forms are mirrored by several acrylic paintings on canvas such as Passion, Shoot Out and Channeler. Depicting an engaging play on visual perspective, the paintings clearly reflect a deeply rooted sculptural practice, surprising the viewer with juxtaposing, irregular shapes, bold colors, and energetic patterns that cleverly seem to pop in and out of perspective.

For close to 50 years, Charles Arnoldi has devoted a deep commitment to experimentation, and a tireless focus on studio production. Arriving in Southern California in the mid 1960’s, from Dayton, Ohio, he began an ever-evolving career by studying at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and winning LACMA’s New or Young Talent Award in 1969. In the highly experimental Los Angeles art scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, Arnoldi established an aesthetic separate from his peers. His seminal “stick paintings” where, instead of painting on canvas, he utilized actual tree branches as a vehicle to draw lines through space, were the first works to win him international accolades. In 1972, he was invited to participate in Harald Szeemann’s seminal Documenta V in Kassel, Germany, and later went on to receive two NEA Artist Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Maestro Grant from the California Arts Council.

His works can be found in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.