Leo Valledor: Dimensional Space

About

The current presentation, Dimensional Space, focuses on rectilinear forms with slanted and angled perimeters all at the intersection of vector geometry, reductive planar shapes, minimal palettes and shaped canvases to create illusions of extreme perspectival and three-dimensional space in a two-dimensional picture plane.

This presentation, together with the Gallery’s previous solo exhibition for Valledor in 2018, Curved, which focused on the curvilinear and circular shapes as well as multi-component canvases from the 1950s through the 80s, make clear the importance of Valledor’s paintings as the channel for his life-long pursuit of geometry and color and fusion of the complexity of space, rhythm of jazz music and awareness of poetry using his unique visual language in pictures. Quite simply, those elements defined Valledor’s career: initially as part of the Bay Area Beat Scene in the Fillmore district, then Park Place Gallery and artist collective in New York in the 1960s, then back in his hometown of San Francisco for the remainder of his career. Valledor thought that the paintings from the 1980s represented the pinnacle of his painting career; they were the culmination of his decades of explorations in visual art and his passion for and the influence of music and poetry on his art making practice. The paintings in the current presentation, Dimensional Space, were produced in that final decade before he passed away far too young in 1989, but more specifically, from the first half of that decade, the years1980 through 1984.