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GALLERIES
(column)
Here
comes
another neo-Expressionist, and it isn't a fresh-out-of-school
beginner. It's Don Sorenson, a talented, reasonably seasoned young
painter who should know better than to jump on the current bandwagon
and take cues from George Rodart and Jedd Garet.
Sorenson
hasn't lost his ability to paint. He still makes vibrant canvases
crammed with visual energy. And he hasn't regressed to the sloppy
drawing and toss-off Angst that characterizes the worst
of the genre. The problem is that he appears to be frantic to
be fashionable. His tactic is stage a doomed little battle between
Classicism and Modernism by painting Greek statuary, columns,
philosophical symbols and mythical characters in a turbulent bre
of brushy pigment, swirling forms and raucous color.
Apparently
humor is intended, but the melee looks too much like a desparately
flamboyant confessional to be very funny. It takes very little
imagination to see the statues as self-portraits particularly
when they wield straks of lightning. Zigzags flying through the
paintings are the motif that became Sorenson's logo when he developed
and extensive and richly varied body of non-objective painting
a few years ago.
Sorenson
was due for a change, and we have seen this one coming in recent
group shows. From the beginning, the move looked troubled. Now
that he has theown all his cards on the table, we hoped that the
painfully confused transition leads to something more worthy of
the artist.
(Roy
Boyd Gallery, 170 S. La Brea Ave., to Nov. 3)
Suzanne
Muchnic
Times Staff Writer
—Los
Angeles Times,
October 8, 1982
Don
Sorenson excited the scene when he dbuted last year with abstract
paintings. The spirit of Jackson Pollack seemed reincarnated—
and rejuvenated— in Sorenson's tense, energetic laminations
of active paint and geometric zigzags. Now he shows new work in
an unusual two gallery presentation. It sets one worrying. Fields
of color ooze and spurt, shot through with those crazy linear
bolts. Sorenson seems barely able to maintain the calculated detachement
an artist needs half the time. He moves purposefully from subdues
fiels of, say, black and shades of blue to exotically lush bouquets
of half-tone hues. But within each composition is a bare containment
of complexity that borders on chaos. The element most likely to
cause anzious hyperventilation is the introduction of large geometric
and other shapes woven into compositions. Several, for example,
include a single large elliptical band that is so eccentric and
ametuerish that it borders on a species of metaphysical kitsch.
Well, the reason Sorenson was compelling to begin with was the
risky quality of the pictures. Without that he'd be just another
of the legion of polite, knowledgeable pros inhabiting vanguard
turf. The two exhibitions still contain much excellent, energizing
work and Sorenson remains the most mesmerizing cliff-hanger to
appear in several seasons.
(Nicholas
Wlder Gallery, 8225 1/2 Santa Monica Blvd.,
and Claire S. Copley Gallery, 918 N. La Cienga Blvd., to July
3)
William
Wilson
Times Art Writer
—Los
Angeles Times,
June 18, 1976
Don
Sorenson's intense field abstraction takes risky turns in a
two gallery exhibition that shows him still among the most mesmerizing
artists to appear on this coast in several seasons at Nicholas
Wlder Gallery, 8225 1/2 Santa Monica Blvd.,
and Claire S. Copley Gallery, 918 N. La Cienga Blvd., to July
3.
William
Wilson
Times Art Writer
—Los
Angeles Times,
June 25, 1976
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