LIZA LOU: PAINTING

Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Liza Lou: Painting, an exhibition of new work by the Los Angeles-based artist. In this new series of paintings, Lou renders what appear as quick, painterly gestures in grain-by-grain minutiae.

September 5 – October 12, 2024

Activating the intense chroma and refractive qualities of glass beads, Lou uses her signature material to flow and coagulate into a new form of paint, applying beads in free-form gestures through an intuitive approach. As they collide and overlap on the canvas, Lou’s beads reconstruct strokes of paint, an often-fetishized aspect of mid-century American Abstraction.

In a career spanning three decades, Lou has become widely known for introducing beads as a contemporary fine art medium. Her persistent experimentation has challenged hierarchies and injected humor and glamour into a Feminist vision. Lou’s project is an open-ended investigation into the metaphoric possibilities of a humble material to draw attention to the poetic and painful dimensions of labor, the artistic process, and the complexities of American life. 

Known for her community-based approach, Lou’s current work emerges from a period of solitude spent living and working alone in the Mojave desert in Southern California.

From this undiluted experience in nature, Lou reveals a close look at the act of painting itself, magnifying granular gestures and, as she has described, “listening to the material”.

Together, Lou’s exhibitions at Lehmann Maupin and the Brooklyn Museum provide portals into the evolution of Lou’s decades-long practice—one centered in materiality, invention, and possibility.