Elemental Gestures ft. Caryn Friedlander & Alan Lau

February 2 – March 25, 2023

ArtXchange Gallery presents Elemental Gestures, featuring Caryn Friedlander and Alan Lau, two established Pacific Northwest artists who create dynamic abstractions through experimentation with brush and line. Both Friedlander and Lau lived in Japan, studying sumi painting and calligraphy, as well as majoring in painting at universities in the United States. The result is two artists who are uniquely skilled at evoking elemental emotion through elegant, masterful brushwork.

Alan Lau paints primarily on delicate Japanese rice paper, layering sumi ink, watercolor, pastel, and other media to create abstract works with great depth yet surprising lightness. The artist recalls early memories of his grandmother teaching him calligraphy in her kitchen in California – his first experience with the brush, repeating the Chinese characters over and over. Lau also spent time living and studying in Japan, eventually connecting with a master of the Nanga School of brush painting (known as “Literati Painting”), a school of Japanese painting derived in style from China. “Though I loved the process of brushing ink on paper, I knew eventually that I would have to find my own way of working with these materials if I were to forge my own path in art.”   After his time in Japan, Lau attended the University of California – Santa Cruz, receiving his BA in Art in 1976. By the late 1980s, Lau had settled in Seattle and developed his visual style rooted in the Literati painting tradition and Northwest modernism; inspired by traditional brush painting techniques but unfettered by strict tradition. “Although most of the work I do today is abstract, it is still inspired by both contemporary art and the Asian brush painting tradition,” he writes. “Contemporary to me is never based on when the art was created but rather if it feels alive and relevant to me today.”

Caryn Friedlander presents a series of large-scale oil paintings on canvas that resemble blooming gardens of energetic line and color. She lived in Japan for 4 years while working on her Master’s thesis, where she studied with a master calligrapher from a Japanese school influenced by Chinese aesthetics. “Gesture doesn’t get much more elemental than when it is expressed through the long, rich tradition of Asian calligraphy…. I find it mysterious and wonderful that a single line can be filled with so much emotive potential.” writes Friedlander. “Western art, when I came home, led me to massing those lines together, while also trying to give each one its own life.”  Born in New York City, Friedlander earned her MA in Japanese art history (University of Washington, 1987), and an MFA in painting and drawing (University of Washington, 1991). Along with her studio work, Friedlander taught drawing and painting at Whatcom Community College (Bellingham, WA) from 1992 until 2015, when she retired from teaching to focus solely on her studio work.