Nancy Toomey Fine Art is featuring works by Casper Brindle, Eric Butcher, and Suzan Woodruff around the theme of Finish Fetish this week, from the Beauty in Lockdown catalogue. The term Finish Fetish was coined to denote a style of art originating in southern California in the 1960s. Artwork of this type often has a glossy and slick finish, referencing minimalism, pop art and the Light and Space movement. The term alludes to the importance of surface properties often borrowed from the industrial world. The work of UK based Eric Butcher, when compared to the perfections of machine production, represents a glorification of human error and the limitations of the artist’s hand in its reduction and scraping away of material. Butcher’s art shares the craftsmanship, time consuming labor, and manual dexterity of work by Casper Brindle and Suzan Woodruff, though Butcher renders his impeccable surfaces with an entirely different methodology. LA based Casper Brindle applies fine layers of airbrushed automotive paint, utilizing tools and techniques borrowed from LA car culture, while Suzan Woodruff’s iridescent shimmering surfaces result from a rigorous physical process involving constant motion and pouring. With all three of these artists, divergent intentions and practices, material choices, and visual vocabulary inform the end result of gleaming surface and atmosphere, while always celebrating the substantive addition of the human presence.

 

 

 

CASPER BRINDLE, Nectar, 2018
Acrylic, Automotive Paint and Resin, 48 x 48 Inches
$15,500

Los Angeles based Casper Brindle pushes the expressive possibilities of color while working within his boldly established pictorial structures. Though the materials he utilizes are industrial in nature (automotive paint and resin), the way in which he applies pigment in delicate sprays allows for subtle chromatic gradations. Pairing together unusual colors results in unexpected harmonies that vibrate with radiant energy. The inherent properties of the materials Brindle uses enhance the interactive experience of viewing his work–the iridescent pigments shift and scatter light in myriad ways… More »

 

ERIC BUTCHER, P/R 800, 2017
Oil and Resin on Aluminum, 31.5 x 42.5 Inches
$10,000

For the past two decades, United Kingdom based Eric Butcher has developed a creative practice both reductive and rule governed. Working primarily with oil paint or graphite suspended in resin, a transparent monochrome is spread across the surface of his aluminum support and then stripped off, using a variety of metal blades drawn across the surface. This procedure is then repeated, slowly building up an accumulation of thin residues, creating tiny variations of unevenness on the edge of the blade which effect the density of paint as it is stripped away… More »

 

SUZAN WOODRUFF, Properties of Heat III, 2016
Acrylic on Acrylic Panel, 24 x 22 Inches
$5,000

With a method of controlled chaos, Los Angeles based Suzan Woodruff paints works that depict natural occurrences, from the molecular to interstellar phenomena. Using gravity, pigment, viscosity and evaporation, she re-creates nature within her ethereal acrylic color explorations. The iridescent shimmering surfaces are a result of her studio practice; a rigorous physical process involving constant motion that keeps her open to the “visitations and apparitions” that inform the end result. The work can resemble patterns of the earth as seen from space, or the smallest cosmic eruption at the cellular level… More »

 

The Beauty in Lockdown catalogue works are available with special price considerations. For more information please contact:
 
Nancy Toomey
(415) 307-9038

 

 

Watch the catalogue video here: