Lohin Geduld Gallery is proud to present our third exhibition of paintings and drawings by Laura Battle.

Explorers and artists share the impulse for mapping, or making visible, unknown territories. In these elegant new works, Laura Battle charts the trajectories of universal forces and her own imagination. Using a diagrammatic drawing language with thin stains of paint layers, Battle conjures thoughts of antiquated maps and futuristic star charts.

Geometry holds an insatiable fascination for Battle. Not because of its concrete character, but because of its tremendous flexibility. Her images, which seem so assured, are derived from improvisation and intuition. Setting up a premise, Battle proceeds to build pattern structures. Like the ancient Greeks, Battle knows that the basic workings of compass and ruler can yield complex structures. As these patterns suggest other patterns, the artist adapts and shifts, making asymmetrical mappings of her own thoughts and questions.

While these images have a secular quality derived from scientific inquiry, they also possess hints of creation mythology and belief systems. One is reminded of both Galileo’s observational drawings of the moon’s phases, and Aboriginal dream state imagery. Battle makes no hierarchical distinctions, allowing art, science and myth to freely mix. Hints of Tantric and Judeo-Christian imagery mingle with EKG or wavelength patterns, forming a semaphore effect of communication.

Time is an ever-present theme in Battle’s imagery. It is the time of celestial bodies moving through space, or the boundary expansion of the universe. The sense that we are part of a continuum, stretching infinitely backward and forward, takes hold. These challenging works present a forum where complex ideas can be visualized and tested. In her attempt to comprehend the unknown, Laura Battle creates a uniquely personal vision filled with exploration and beauty.

Laura Battle is a professor of painting at Bard College. She received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited at The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; The National Academy Museum, New York, NY; The Painting Center, New York, NY; Franklin Furnace Archive, Brooklyn, NY; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY; Wheelock College, Boston, MA; and The Kanazawa College of Art, Ishikawa, Japan, among others. Battle was recently awarded a grant from the Peter S. Reed Foundation and a Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New York Observer, and Chronogram Magazine, among other publications. Laura Battle lives and works in Rhinebeck, NY.

Catalog available with essay by Susan Aberth.