to wrap my last kiss in a bandage opens June 8, 2022 at TAG Gallery, 5458 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036. TAG is open 1pm-7pm, Wed-Sun
For almost twenty years, I have primarily focused on creating work that has as its main focus a world with the atomic bomb. And for the last ten plus years have almost exclusively dealt with images documenting the aftermath of US underground weapons testing program. I am interested in the political ramifications of the atomic bomb. I am interested in the social issues surrounding the bomb. I am interested in an internal personal linkage between life with HIV, and life with the bomb. And I am intent on positioning my curiosity about all of the aforementioned concerns within an art historical framework and an aesthetic context.
It has been noted that I am “…well established for making bright, almost cheery geometric abstraction based on centered symmetrical compositions that have a conceptual foundation in critiquing the power of Mutually Assured Destruction. By basing the image in his pictures on the patterns of underground bomb blasts, the natural logic of the composition resolved itself.” Thus I have given myself “…the freedom to emphasize color as a creative liberation independent of the centrifugal pattern. The subtext to adding luscious color to such a stark, nihilistic thing as a bomb blast is the ultimate in artistic liberty.”
The exhibition, “to wrap my last kiss in a bandage,” at TAG Gallery, focuses on my latest series, Niblick Underground Tests, and is much more object oriented than many of the series from the last several years.It consists of work on panels with attached latex body casts.The patterns are still derived from atomic imagery, the patterns are still symmetrical, and the use of color is still very idiomatic.The addition of body “parts” connects humanity to life with (or after) the bomb in general, and for me, specifically.I have given myself, if just for a short time, the illusion of control over death
About the Artist: Edward Lightner was born in the San Joaquin Valley of California in 1960. Although this is the farming area that Dorothea Lange chronicled during the depression, he was drawn to the arts from an early age, instead of choosing the dominate careers of the area such as agriculture and oil.
It is here that Edward became enthralled with colors and lines, shapes and form. He was fascinated by how the world is represented to other people through the eyes of other people. Naturally, against the best counseling of his mother, Edward chose to pursue a life in the world of contemporary art.
Along with being an artist, Edward co-owned a gallery in Los Angeles for ten years, and is now serving on the Board of Governors at Otis College of Art and Design, also in Los Angeles. He has shown from Los Angeles to New York along with exhibitions in Australia, Asia and Europe.
Today Edward lives and works in Pasadena California.
About the Gallery: TAG is a fine art gallery located on Museum Row in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1993, the gallery represents award-winning contemporary Southern California artists working in all mediums and styles.
