Ivan Morley's paintings are inspired by the frontiersman's lore of scrappy, dried-out California towns with names like San Gabriel, El Monte, and Tehachapi. Such locales and their all-but-forgotten (and possibly artist-fabricated) histories--if you can call tales of memorable cockfights and observations on the behavior of squirrels histories-seem unlikely sources of inspiration.



Yet, from a mass of myth, a dose of his own vivid imagination, and a range of raw material, Morley has created some mighty idiosyncratic pictures. The show as a whole was pulled together with a keen sense of detail, with texts telling a few of the stories rendered carefully on the walls. To create his paintings, Morley applies dyed fabric, wax, varnish, dense patches of colored thread, and, occasionally, oil paint to a range of supports that includes denim, glass, linen, and canvas. Sometimes he paints on glass, peels the image off, and affixes it to another support.

BIOGRAPHY

1966

Born in Burbank

Lives and works in Los Angeles

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2006

Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York

2005

Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica

2004

Bernier / Eliades, Athens, Greece

2003

Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica

2002

Essor Gallery, London, England

2001

Frehrking Wiesehoefer, Cologne, Germany

Selections from ?A True Tale,? ?Brazilian T-Shirt,? and ?Dig?, Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica

1998

George's, Los Angeles

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2006

Painting in Tongues, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Los Angeles

2005

Ab Ovo, Cartelle Gallery, Marina del Rey; Rolf Ricke, Cologne; Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco; Angstrom Gallery, Texas

2004

Looking at Painting II, Galerie Tanit, Munich, Germany

2003

Ivan Morley, Christian Schumann, Jim Shaw, Patrick Painter Inc., Santa Monica

Gibt's Mich Wirklich, works from the Gaby and Wilhelm Schurmann Collection-K21, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf

2002

Galerie Ghislane Hussenot, Paris, France

Startkapital, K21, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf

2001

22nd Annual Benefit Art Auction, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles

2000

Paintland, organized by Terry R. Myers, Lemon Sky Project Space, Hollywood

1998

Group Show, Gallery 207, Los Angeles

1997

Buffet, Contemporary Arts Collective, Las Vegas

Shooting Gallery, Harm Reduction Central ? Clean Needles Now, Los Angeles

Article Theme :-

Ivan Morley's complex, color-saturated paintings are visual extrapolations made within an associative game that starts with history. Born in Burbank, California in the mid-60s - seemingly a time and place of little history - Morley begins his work by excavating shards of little-known historical anecdotes and fact from LA's frontier past in the mid 19th century.

Read Entire Article about Artist Ivan Morley paintings and artwork at The Saatchi-Gallery http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/ivan_morley.htm