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Charles ARNOLDI

Recent Paintings

September 12 - November 3, 2018

Reception for artist Wednesday, September 12, 5:30-8pm

Charles ARNOLDI

I'll Be Back

2018

oil on linen; diptych
72 x 166 inches overall
CA 235

Summary

Throughout his five-decade career, celebrated Southern California artist Charles Arnoldi has approached abstraction from seemingly innumerable angles. He has experimented with line, shape, and color through wood and sticks, through acrylic and oil paint on canvas and linen, through copper and aluminum, through ink, gouache, pencil, charcoal, and tape on paper. He has based series around potatoes, windows, and eclipses; he has created non-representational work inspired by Hawaii and the 15th-century rock formations of Machu Picchu—and this list doesn’t approach being exhaustive. And yet, regardless of the various elements that come and go in his work, Arnoldi’s series lead into one another like stops on a languid train ride—in order for the train to move forward, it must pull through each successive, scenic station.
 
In an interview with the Santa Fe Arts Journal last year, Arnoldi touched on his evolution elegantly, saying, “In abstract painting, an artist invents a problem and solves it.” For Arnoldi, just as one problem is seemingly solved, another becomes apparent, necessitating and inevitably leading to a new technique for visual problem-solving.
—Sarah E. Fensom, Art & Antiques, June 2018
 
Modernism is pleased to present its ninth one-person exhibition of new paintings by Charles Arnoldi. The show will feature works from his latest Machu Picchu and String Theory series.