LES BILLER
Traffic 2, 2019, oil on canvas, 59 1/2 x 55"
At the invitation of Molly Barnes, director of West Los Angeles College Art Gallery,
Rosamund Felsen Gallery presents an exhibition of all wall-mounted artworks by gallery artists consisting of: Les Biller paintings, Ruth Greene book paintings, Steven Hull paintings, a Jean Lowe painted wall sculpture, a Kim MacConnel large 1978 acrylic on fabric painting from the early days of the Pattern and Decoration movement that will hang on the curved wall section of the gallery, Grant Mudford photographs of gallery artists, and C.K. Wilde currency collages of historical figures - as part of this marked exhibition at West Los Angeles College Art Gallery in Culver City.
Opening: Thursday, November 7th, 2019: 5 - 7 PM
On View: November 7th - December 20th, 2019
WLAC Art Gallery 9000 Overland Avenue
Culver City, CA 90230
LES BILLER
June 27
–
August 8, 2015
Reception: Saturday, June 27, 3
–
6 PM
photo: Grant Mudford
Informed by the vibrant pacific sunlight in Los Angeles & Hawaii, and the intrigues of visiting China & living in Japan, Les Biller presents his 3rd exhibition of representational, landscape & abstract paintings with Rosamund Felsen Gallery.
Verbose in vigor and voluptuous in verve, these robust works brim over with activity & commotion. Portraiture, still life & landscape coalesce with cubist composition & Matissean sensuality while distinctive people, jocular animals, succulent foliage & lush objects are rendered in decadent interiors & extravagant exteriors. Some of these subjects are sourced from real life whereas others are authored from the imagination. Chimes of colors radiate as movement springs from quickness of brush, all the while rendering unique feelings of perception, light, foreground & depth.
In variance, reflective & solitary, watercolor mountain landscapes align with a separate series of abstract works from his past to backlight this latest exhibition.
Les Biller was invited into the gallery’s roster in 2014. He held teaching positions at UCLA from 1964-1975 as well as University of Hawaii from 1975-1980, has received awards from LA County Museum Annual Prize as well as a Fullbright Grant. His one-artist exhibitions include shows at College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, CA; State Foundation of Culture & the Arts, Honolulu; Contemporary Arts Center, Honolulu; Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara; & Frederick Wight Gallery, UCLA to name a few.
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PREVIOUS EXHIBITS AT ROSAMUND FELSEN GALLERY:
LES BILLER: Part 2
January 10 - February 7, 2015
Reception: Saturday, January 10, 5 – 7 PM
photo: Grant Mudford
For Les Biller’s second show at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, lonesome Los Angeles cityscape paintings are juxtaposed with narrative paintings composed from mythology, reality and fantasy.
Rich and decadent colors tell stories of the subjects in the narrative paintings, opening with still lifes in beautiful spaces. A bust of Emperor Nero causes his pregnant wife Poppaea to be aghast as a nearby figure stands checking her smartphone. While in another large painting, beautiful objects obscure the view of a serene body of water with monkeys swinging jubilantly overhead. These compositions are unique and humorous, at times enigmatic.
If the narrative paintings are an exercise of cognition, then the cityscapes are of the emotions. Void of people, the yearning cityscapes depict views of Los Angeles that only a sensitive wanderer would notice - the moment right before the beach appears, the tender stillness on the side of the road looking through an underpass, the glory of a sunset on a hillside peering over the vast wonder of the L.A. sprawl, or the awe of proud skyscrapers from beyond the barbed wire of South L.A.
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LES BILLER: Part 1
November 22, 2014 - January 3, 2015
Reception: Saturday, November, 22, 5 – 7 PM
photo: Grant Mudford
Les Biller received his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Hawaii in 1957. In 1960, he received his Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles when he was an assistant professor. He then traveled to Japan with his wife Sumiko, clothing designer and boutique owner. After living in Tokyo where he studied at the Tokyo University of Art, they later moved to an abandoned geisha district of Kyoto near Mt. Hiei. Eventually they moved back to the United States where he returned to teach at UCLA in 1964 until 1975. He then returned to the University of Hawaii where he continued teaching for many years.
Now, for his first exhibition with Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Biller presents a body of paintings including still lifes, figures, interiors and landscape. In these paintings, lines weave through charming compositions as beautiful objects are celebrated with equally beautiful measure. Choruses of intense, eccentric and vibrant colors sing praises of glistening vases, sensually patterned textiles, and cars resting before the mountainside. Accompanying the paintings of emotive scenes and sensual objects is a series of figure paintings. One set of these portrays the gestural female form languidly luxuriating in luscious tranquil waters, while another displays audacious nudes wrestling with roaring & tumultuous waves.
With all the works painted exclusively in natural light, the overflow of dazzling colors runs the full gamut of the spectrum. Space and depth are implied, lending to more personal and intimate charm while nodding to influences such as Matisse, Monet, Chardin, Picasso and Courbet. Charismatically, the sensational brushstrokes, color saturation, and rational compositions speak of more than the pictorial scenes they make up. Utilizing still lifes, interiors, figures, and landscapes, Biller’s paintings are celebrations of sensations and experience that meditate on the ever changing relationship between color and light and the playful, at times tenuous, and above all romantic interplay between the two.
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TEXAS CONTEMPORARY September 4 - 7, 2014
Houston, TX
West Los Angeles College Art Gallery
9000 Overland Ave Culver City, CA 90230
Slightly Salacious
curated by Molly Barnes
November 17 to December 18, 2014
Artists Reception: November 20, 7-9 PM
Ernie Ramirez, James Scott, David Smith, Robert Williams, Mary Woronov
(310) 553-7626
Les Biller Border Crossing, 2012, oil on canvas, 40 x 60"
I hate reality
College of the Canyons Art Gallery, September 28 - October 22, 2011
Santa Clarita, CA - Curator: Larry Hurst
