Press release, 2001- Double Vision Gallery, Los Angeles

Double Vision Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Los Angeles of New Zealand-born artist, Philippa Blair.

The paintings and drawings currently on view are the result of relocation, without being site-specific, condensing a reflection of the artist's current environment. Interested in the mechanics of movement, the painter uses arcs and pivots to articulate spatial dynamics in the work, which are literally extensions of the movement of the artist's body. The informal compositions favor gesture and are not restrained by grids and vectors often recurring in her work. The exhibition title 'TransMotion' refers to the works inherent convergence of kinaesthesia or movement, and visual and acoustic elements. The paintings have a sculptural quality. Their surfaces are as textured by the multiple means of application, from the fine delicate drips woven into a painted fabric, to the voluptuous pigments squeezed directly from the tube onto the canvas, sliced through by purposeful structural marks. Paint pours have been carefully plotted as velocity of movement creates active sprays. Blair is a painter who has always been conscious of a larger context for her practice, not to mention a legacy of abstract painting, particularly in the United States. Yet the artist brings with her a unique Pacific sensibility which is informed by diverse cultural references from her many travels.

Blair has exhibited widely internationally for over the past 25 years with over 80 solo exhibitions and participation in over 150 group exhibitions to her credit. In 1984 the artist had her first solo exhibition in New York at the Shippee Gallery concurrent with the 'Te Maori' exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and again in 1987. In 1990 and 1995 Blair exhibited at the Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, California. In 1999 she exhibited the series 'Traverse,' a one-person exhibition in Rhode Island. Last year, she was included in 'Gestural Maps' at POST Gallery, LA.

Blair's work has been acquired by major public institutions and private collections in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and Europe.

Philippa Blair was born in 1945 in Christchurch New Zealand. She currently lives and works in Venice, California. Since 1995 she has been a Visiting Artist in the Graduate Studies Department at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and is currently teaching painting part-time at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.