Image: Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles
The exhibition, titled ‘String Theory,’ includes an artist-led walkthrough on Friday, October 2, at 11 am, followed by an opening reception on Saturday, October 3, from 6 to 8 pm. The presentation focuses on a series of paintings Arnoldi created between 2016 and 2019, titled ‘String Theory.’
The announced works are ‘Boost’ (2019), ‘Impossible Knot’ (2017), ‘Species’ (2017) and ‘Quick Start’ (2016). Although “string theory” is an important research discipline in physics, Arnoldi applied the series title because of the paintings’ formal aspects, rather than as a direct claim about physics.
The ideas originated from Yuval Noah Harari’s ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind,’ which discusses humans’ capacity to imagine things that do not physically exist. Arnoldi translates fluid lines onto canvas through the movement of his arm and hand, an approach compared in the gallery text to surrealist automatic drawing; the resulting image is described as both direct and complex.
As layers of linearity stratify, the residual human energy of the lines increases. Arnoldi uses the edges of the canvas as guard rails to restrain pictorial energy, in contrast to Jackson Pollock’s use of his body to spread paint.
Arnoldi is 80 years old and has a history of more than 55 years of exhibitions worldwide. Across his career, he has consistently explored line, shape and color as formal concerns in order to advance visual complexity and emotional resonance.
