Roy Dowell: New Work    Oct 10 - Nov 14, 2009

For more than thirty years Dowell has combined his precise painting technique with elements from printed materials, composing collages that are at once abstract and, in part, representational. In his new collages, Dowell has chosen to depart from his traditional inclusion of ready-made materials, such as scraps from billboard ads or commercial signage, in favor of painting or drawing most of the assembled components. Whereas previously Dowell’s collages often related to one another through shared printed or painted elements, each of the artist’s new works has a decidedly more individualistic approach toward exposing and reframing the fabric of our visual language.

Having exhibited both nationally as well as internationally, Dowell’s work is represented in numerous private collections and major museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Orange County Museum of Art; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Dowell currently chairs the Graduate Fine Arts Department at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

Also on view, a special project by:

Continuing his strange and humorous forays into often obscure parts of world culture, Vallance’s new project revolves around his time spent with the nomadic, reindeer-herding Lap people. Central to the Lap people’s religious practices is the shaman or noid and his mystical drum, which bears painted pictographs and aids him in prophesying. Vallance, fashioning his own drum out of traditional wood and deer skin, has slyly inserted his own symbols among those used by the Lap in effect creating a story that wittily combines elements of his modern, artistic experience with devoted anthropological study. A selection of Vallance’s drawings of drum heads will be also be included.

Margo Leavin Gallery is located at 812 North Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles. Gallery hours are 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.