STUART FINEMAN YOELLA RAZILI ALAN GREENBERG
STUART FINEMAN
YOELLA RAZILI
ALAN GREENBERG
OPENING RECEPTION : SATURDAY April 5, 4-7PM 2025
SHOW DURATION: April 5th - April 30th 2025
Exhibiting at the LMFLA Gallery in Sierra Madre are three contemporary American artists: Yoella Razili, who lives and works in Los Angeles County, and former Northern Californians Alan Greenberg and Stuart Fineman, both of whom now are based in Philadelphia.
These three artists have exhibited together numerous times in larger group exhibitions and the three together in a collaborative installation in 2021 at Divisible Projects in Dayton, Ohio.
“abstract art is not the creation of another reality but the true vision of reality.” Piet Mondrian
The art practiced by Yoella Razili, Alan Greenberg, and Stuart Fineman is based on a Modernist and Reduced aesthetic that incorporates vested interests in contemporary concerns for painting, sculpture and Installation. Their work together is thought-provoking and is a visual delight in the way their conceptions play off of each other. The works are constructed and conceived with disparate elements that come together in compositions that just feel visually and conceptually right. Intuitive decision-making, based on years of experience with balancing the attributes of art, design, craft and architecture, translates across their oeuvre. It is Modernism with a human touch.
Each of their works is non-objective. While they may be considered abstract, considering the quote by Mondrian, they have their own reality and a concreteness that is self-referential. When experienced together the viewer can see similar dynamics and problem solving. And while the languages are similar, based on shared historical philosophies and references, there is a uniqueness of vision that makes each of the works their own.
Shared themes among the three artists are the attention to contrasts and edges, degrees of opacity, what is inside and outside, in front of and behind and degrees of lightness, expressiveness and control. Look for parts and sections in their shared use of both fabricated and found materials, the handmade qualities and the attention to color and visual juxtapositions.
In this exhibition Yoella Razili continues her exploration of geometric forms with organic inspired round edges and a reduced palette that together create a feeling of softness and calm. They are meant to be contemplated and explored. The contrast of the incorporated found and aged wood that merges its raw and time-worn presence with the crispness of applied white elements results in a sublime yet concrete object. Recessed elements and the turning of round structures, produce shadow and darkness where form and light reveal sculptural depth. In Rise and Stillness 2023 the vertical column has both preciousness and strength. It stands tall despite being composed of so many parts. It remains stable despite the forces that want to disassemble the unity.
Alan Greenberg’s work likewise explores the interactions of line, shape and form in space.
In some of his new works he arranges planar forms of plaster, wood, translucent plastic and other objects on shelves in stacked compositions that highlights dynamic yet balanced contrasts of color, light and shadow. In Pink Eclipsed with Wood Panel (2025) we see that his smaller “shelf” pieces increased in scale. The larger planes are on the floor, leaning against the white wall. In this sculpture, weight has become an important factor in the concept. In the wall installation, Greenberg incorporates a line/cord and a hook with literally dangling planes. Penumbra is less formal and almost whimsical, free of some of the constraints of weight and gravity. Together, the sculptural pieces address degrees of translucency and opaqueness, color and value, weight and balance, surface and composition.
In Stuart Fineman’s most recent work, he too has been exploring formats, processes, materials and surfaces. Conceptually his work explores how something can be perceived and understood in more than in one way. The works, like Razili’s, seem harmonious, stable and dependable upon first observation. There Is a beauty to them. Once contemplated however, attributes, that is what makes the painting, becomes incongruous to each other. What appeared comfortable becomes something more challenging.
The painted panels are on flat plexiglass, principally monochrome, with organic and expressive inspired drawings within a shallow atmospheric space. Some panels are mounted alone but others combine with the wall, which contributes other values, colors and materials seen next to or apart of the panels. There are aspects of the painting unknown and of betrayal (2025 )and outwardly and inwardly (2025) painted directly on the wall that may not have been perceived from a distance. In one of the tall vertical compositions, definite and indefinite (2025), the top panel juxtaposes with a cut to size but otherwise untouched flat black sheet of rubber. The other vertical painting, concord or discord (2025), is combined with a second imbedded image, this on paper. The painted panels themselves are secondary to the “big picture”, that is, what occurs when they are seen together. Color choices and their contrasts, vestiges of past marks and directions, along with the changing edges of softness to hardness, further adds to the dissonance and mystery.
There is a temporary aspect to Stuart Fineman’s paintings, similar to Alan Greenberg’s installations, and Yoella Razili’s vertically stacked column Rise and Stillness, they only fully exist when installed.