Kavin Buck | Waiting for the Sun to Fall
June 6 - July 6, 2024
Elizabeth Leach Gallery is pleased to present Waiting for the Sun to Fall, Northwest painter Kavin Buck’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. A suite of bold new large-scale paintings seize the gallery walls and oscillate between realism and abstraction with a deliberate, hand-hewn energy. They each obliquely reflect their origin of creation, pointing to spaces real and imagined by use of concentrated hues, distinctive brushwork and dramatic mark-making; signature distinctions of Buck’s flourishing oeuvre. Their intricacies reward close study by way of brush striations which describe the gravity that divides land and sky within a vaguely familiar landscape.
Larger scale works made with a more dramatic application of brush strokes recall the romantic vistas of the Pacific Northwest and create an enveloping field the viewer can disappear into. The effect can be both aquatic and terrestrial through his masterful use of glazing techniques.
The more intimate watercolors - more wrist then elbow - are created in the lush West Coast style. Though primarily abstract in tone, they allude to elements of the representational world and speak in rhyming cadence with the more heroic acrylic paintings which share the room.
Kavin Buck received his MFA at the California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, CA) and his BFA from the Otis College of Art and Design (Los Angeles, CA). He attended the American University/Parsons School of Design in Paris (France) and completed post-graduate studies with the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (New York, NY). In 1990-91 he was a member at the PS1/MoMA National and International Studio Program. Buck’s artwork is represented by the Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland, Oregon and has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at Laguna Art Museum (Laguna Beach, CA), La Estacion Arte Contemporaneo (Chihuahua, MX), Los Angeles Contemporary Gallery (catalog with an essay by Ed Schad), University of Virginia Art Museum (Charlottesville, VA), Ruth Bachofner Gallery (Santa Monica, CA), The Drawing Center (New York, NY), and the PS1Museum (Long Island City, NY). His works are included in many public, private, and corporate collections in the US and internationally.