The Maize Project, Have a Nice Day, and Building into Shadows
September 6 - November 1, 2008

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 6th, from 7 - 10 pm.

The Torrance Art Museum is are pleased to present three solo exhibitions opening Saturday, September 6th. Our fall exhibitions focus on artists who explore the intersection of color and abstraction.

In the Main Gallery is The Maize Project, which features a site-specific sculptural installation by Eric Johnson. Johnson has created a large-scale sculpture, assembled from more than 300 individual cast polyester resin units. Standing on end, this work rises 14 feet at the east end of the gallery. The Maize Project is accompanied by a 24-page catalog documenting the communal process of Johnson's monumental undertaking. The catalog features an essay by Scarlet Cheng, writer on film and visual arts for the Los Angeles Times, and is designed by Sunook Park, Director of ANDLab Design, Los Angeles.

In our project space, Marco Casentini's Have a Nice Day has transformed the gallery with floor-to-ceiling murals that echo the geometric abstraction of his works on plexiglass. In his installation, Casentini reveals himself as the latest artist to succumb to the seductive charms of our state's Sunshine Muse. A native of Italy, Casentini's work has been hugely influenced by the light-hearted optimism of Southern California culture.

Have a Nice Day travels to the Torrance Art Museum from the Museum fur Konkrete Kunst in Ingolstadt, Germany. The exhibition is accompanied by a 135- page catalog with an essay by curator Dorothea Niggemeier of the Museum fur Konkrete Kunst.

In the South Bay Focus corridor, Mary Pichette's Building into Shadows presents five large-scale pastel drawings on paper. Pichette's organic abstractions investigate the perceptual possibilities of a non-objective visual language.

Visually captivating in their formal treatment of materials and impressive in the ambition of their projects, these three artists find their voices in dialog of contemporary abstraction here at the Torrance Art Museum.