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RED, WHITE AND BLACK TOUR

Adam Mars and Michael Brunswick

RED, WHITE AND BLACK TOUR

October 5–October 27, 2024
Opening Event: Saturday, October 5th, 2024 from 5–9pm

24411 Hawthorne Blvd., Torrance, CA 90505

Ace Tiger gallery is excited to present the special west coast reunion of Red, White and Black Tour, an exhibition of captivating abstract paintings by Los Angeles-based artists Adam Mars and Michael Brunswick. While the show’s title may elicit political connotations, it was conceived in 2010 as an alternative traveling art show that would showcase breakthrough paintings with a similar color palette. Mars’ explosive hard-edge compositions and Brunswick’s large-scale gestural works evolved out of the OTIS College of Art and Design’s MFA program where the two artists bonded over their love for rebellious painting and rock n’ roll music.

Several years after graduation, they decided to incorporate music and painting and take their red, white, and black abstract paintings on a European tour as if they were an up-and-coming rock band trying to attract a new audience. Over the course of a summer, they would travel by van to thirteen different countries and set up one-night-only art exhibitions in a variety of unconventional gallery spaces along the way. Unfortunately, the art tour never made it back to southern California for a hometown show.

Well... until now.

This October, Mars and Brunswick will stage a one-off reunion show of their red, white and black paintings. A thorough selection of Mars’ vibrant compositions and Brunswick’s gestural pieces will be on display, as well as unseen preparatory works, and a limited-edition tour poster. The not-to-be-missed opening event on October 5th is free and open to the public.

For more information about the featured artists and the artworks in the exhibition, please continue reading or email hello@acetiger79.com.

Adam Mars (b. 1981, Orange County, CA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Mars received his BA from UC Santa Barbara in 2003 and his MFA from OTIS College of Art and Design in 2007. Mars has exhibited throughout the United States at various institutions, including the Laguna Art Museum and the Torrance Art Museum. He has also had solo exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles, and his work was featured in various publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Interview Magazine, and Artforum. In 2017, Mars began designing custom clothing for musicians like Post Malone, Billie Eilish, and Axl Rose. His unique stage wear has appeared in Saturday Night Live, New York Magazine, and Rolling Stone.

With his radical exploration of abstract imagery from 2007-2010, Mars declared that he, “wanted (his) paintings to beat the computers.” The progression of computer-generated imagery at that time had a profound effect on the look of popular culture, ultimately blurring the distinction between reality and digital reality in film, television, and advertising. It also influenced contemporary painting through programs like Photoshop, which Mars used as a tool to help create compositions that he would eventually enhance with paint. As a result, the paintings from Red, White and Black Tour have a hi-def crispness and illusionary quality that at times is too complicated for the eye to process. But these paintings aren’t geometrically based like complex Op art. They feature organic contours, folds, and shadows that reappear in altered states throughout the series, as if the paintings are informing one another. They also stick to a rigid color pallet of red, white, and black that gives these pieces an undeniable association with flesh, bone, and bodily fluids.

On the surface, the marble-like canvases showcase little-to-no presence of the artist’s hand. They run counter to more romantic approaches to painterly abstraction where the brush and medium are evident. Mars stated that, “(he) didn’t want to make abstract paintings that could be snuck into the modern collection of a museum and fit in seamlessly.” His pursuit of truly fresh abstraction paid off as these paintings still look like they were painted yesterday or were magically transported from the future. Through the 10 paintings in the exhibition, Mars pushes his technical abilities as an airbrush painter to meticulous lengths that he hasn’t explored since.

Michael Brunswick (b.1979, Toronto, Canada) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. Brunswick received his BFA and MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2004 and 2007.
He has exhibited locally and abroad with solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Sun Valley, and Toronto. Brunswick was included in the Los Angeles Times’ “45 Painters Under 45” and featured in LA Weekly and Whitehot Magazine. Brunswick has also collaborated with eyewear and apparel brands like Garrett Leight and Kapital. Currently, Brunswick owns and operates Ace Tiger, an independent creative space for art and artists in the South Bay of Los Angeles.

Brunswick began creating his trademark “drip stroke” paintings in 2005 as black and white compositions that were expressive and decorative evolutions of traditional action painting. His detailed process of mixing old master mediums with oil paint then using an additional stretched canvas as the vessel to transfer paint onto his primary canvas resulted in wild, fluid gestures. The dominant gestures appear to cascade through the center, conjuring thoughts of water, bodily fluids, or cellular growth. The canvases used to create these gestures (Brunswick refers to them as “tools”) also possess a connection to color field paintings with their flat, poured qualities.

The lyrical attributes of Brunswick’s paintings are accentuated by the opaque separation of tones. In the painting Gently Touching, the gestures don’t muddy or blend into the background. Instead, they remain sharp and almost digitally carved out, which gives the painting a contemporary feel. Over time, the white oil paint has evolved into a yellowed hue that gives it a cool, vintage feel. However, his paintings in Red, White and Black Tour still radiate the same passion for creative freedom that Brunswick exemplified nearly two decades ago. They remain a place for introspection where the viewer can explore their own inner-personal lives while simultaneously considering the artist’s intentions.