TRANS: form | color

Leonhard HurzlmeierOink
Alacquer/Varnish on wood2008
This is without question the best group show I've seen in the Bay Area since moving here two years ago. If you're in town, be sure to check it out at Meridian Gallery between now and December 19.

This is the third installment of "TRANS," a traveling show featuring works by nine artists from around the world:

Kasarian Dane (U.S.), Stephan Fritsch (Germany), Brent Hallard (Japan), Leonhard Hurzlmeier (Germany), Robin McDonnell (U.S.), Mel Prest (U.S.), Richard Schur (Germany), Nancy White (U.S.), and John Zurier (U.S.)

These artists share a heightened sensitivity toward color, physical painting structures, and the long history of abstract painting. As Peter Selz notes in an accompanying catalog, however, each artist has arrived at this style of geometric/minimal/abstract painting in their own unique way:

…These painters, calling themselves TRANS, meeting in person or on the Internet, found that they share a common interest in the painting process, pure, and often not so simple. Unlike previous groups, they share no common ideology and they certainly are not likely to publish a manifesto. And they all agree that it is the viewer's response, which completes the work…

It's worth noting that these artists sought out each other from the beginning and were not "picked" by a curator or gallerist. In the highly fragmented and nuanced world of contemporary art, it is refreshing to see this physical manifestation of shared, transnational visual concerns. It reminds us that one is never alone or without allies in his or her artistic pursuits, regardless of style and motives.