Greene Contemporary is pleased to welcome Paul Lorenz to Sarasota, Florida in May, 2006.
With an education in Bauhaus architecture and fine art, Paul has carved an interesting niche in the international art world: bridging the principals and emotions of painting with the logic and detail of architecture. Paul approaches painting as a balance of physical structure (wood, canvas, paper); visual structure (brush strokes, scrapes, tears); and color. The structure of color takes on it's own life while contained on the paintings surface. Whether thin and spatial, or thick and elemental, the colors are not random, but developed to compliment the physical and the visual. With respectful regard to the Abstract Expressionists of the forties and fifties, Paul allows the painting process to remain the final subject.
The paintings in this exhibition have been a journey, physically and technically. For the past nine months or so Paul has been exploring a particular white paint, the Japanese pigment Gofun. Made of crushed oyster shells, this pigment does not react like typical earth pigments. It has taken him a very long time to understand the technical properties of this substance and how to work with the paint in a way that is consistent with his aesthetic and expressive definitions. This one pigment became the basis for the gestures made and resulting marks. The pigment is an uncontrollable force, which made Lorenz re-think his actions as a painter. It keeps Paul open to chance and open to deeper interpretations of composition and resolve. The paintings in this exhibition are a turning point and quantum leap. They fuse artistic knowledge with personal trust and technical curiosity.
Paul has lived and worked in Chicago and Berkeley, California, though he recently moved to the emerging art community of Paducah, Kentucky. As a gallery artist for HANG in San Francisco and Homey in Chicago, Paul has also exhibited extensively in New York City and Europe. In December 2001, Paul was one of the painters representing the United States at the Third International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Florence, Italy, where he won a fifth place medal for painting. In 2002, Paul again represented the United States while participating in the Paris Triennal.