Review: Feeling the pull of Edith Beaucage’s vibrant hallucination
Edith Beaucage’s work has always been bold, but in her latest exhibition at CB1 Gallery, it achieves a new level of confidence and bravura. In 10 paintings and three sculptures, the Los Angeles artist tells the disjointed tale of Ekaterina, a Russian ballerina who meets a surfer boy at an idyllic forest rave.
This narrative, however, is merely a scaffold for Beaucage’s sun-drenched, acid-hued palette and the assurance with which she renders loose portraits — in broad, fluid strokes as relaxed as her subjects. The lush, Arcadian surroundings get the same treatment. Trees are little more than wavering verticals: a kelp forest in a rainbow of shades. Mountains, lakes and sky are rendered breezily in lemon yellows and cobalt blues, appearing to glow with energy.
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Both people and landscape vibrate in a shared hallucination that feels quintessentially Californian and rather New Age, yet Beaucage’s fresh, direct style keeps it from feeling hackneyed.
As if to keep the good vibes going, the artist has taken elements from the paintings — those whimsical trees, casual figures and a two-sided, bright, God’s-eye shape — and turned them into painted, prop-like sculptures. They extend her ecstatic, vibrant vision into our space, inviting us to join the reverie.
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Edith Beaucage
Where: CB1 Gallery, 1923 S. Santa Fe Ave., Los Angeles
When: Through July 18. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Contact: (213) 806-7889, https://www.cb1gallery.com
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