This Summer Château La Coste will present Mountain Range, a solo exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Jennifer Guidi.
This is the first time Guidi, who has gained international recognition for her sand mandala paintings, will present a show solely based on landscapes. These new paintings will be unveiled in the Richard Rogers Gallery, a tranquil space cantilevered over the rural hillside setting of Provence.
Mountain Range explores a recurring motif in Guidi’s oeuvre—the mountain. For Guidi, mountains symbolize a place of contemplation and reflection, a physical representation of the spiritual journey towards a higher consciousness. As paintings, they are also a formal investigation into color, composition, and material. Evocative of California’s rocky landscapes and resonant with the hills of Provence, the paintings have a mesmerizing serenity, reflecting the importance of nature and meditation in the artist’s life and practice.
Guidi’s linen surfaces begin with a base layer of sand mixed with pigments and mediums which she then marks with a hand-carved wooden dowel to create a pattern radiating from a central point, signifying an energy source. The mountain forms are then built up using a new additive technique of topographical layering of colored sand and oil paint dots that give the paintings a rich, textured and three-dimensional quality. The results are bursts of saturated colors, infused with Impressionist and Pointillist influences, representing an evolution in her work and intertwining pure abstraction with the exploration of natural and constructed, inner and outer landscapes.
Light is another key element pervading Guidi’s canvases. Painted in the sunny atmosphere of Los Angeles, her new series finds the perfect background in the equally striking “painter’s light” of Provence, the land of Cézanne and Van Gogh. In Mountain Range, Guidi further develops her established use of color, gradients, and mark-making. The Richard Rogers Gallery, seemingly floating amongst the trees, presents an opportunity for Guidi to interact not only with the pastoral landscape but with the architecture itself. Two large paintings, hanging back-to-back, suspended in mid-air bisect the gallery space and present the viewer with an imagined landscape, playfully interrupting the expected view of the Luberon mountain range. Along the walls, smaller mountainscapes, almost acting as windows, lead you through the space providing unique vignettes rich in color, form, and texture.
The meditative quality of Guidi’s paintings, set against the vineyard and lavender-adorned hills of Provence, with sweeping vistas and valleys below, all combine to produce a soothing effect. Guidi’s everyday practice of mindfulness is also applied to her studio work. Together with the intuitive nature of painting and the ritualistic application of the mandala, the artwork becomes an environment through which Guidi’s intention to connect shines, inviting the viewer to consider one’s own path.
Jennifer Guidi, 20th June – 3rd September, Château La Coste, 2750 Route de La Cride 13610 Le Puy-Sainte-Réparade @ChateauLaCoste
About the artist
Born in 1972 in Redondo Beach, California, Guidi works and lives in Los Angeles. She received a BFA from Boston University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is represented by Gagosian, David Kordansky and Massimo De Carlo, and her work has been exhibited around the world. In 2022, she presented a solo exhibition at the Long Museum in China. Later this year, the Orange County Museum of Art, California will host her first institutional exhibition in the United States.
