Fracc, 2004
Fracc, 2004
60 × 48 inches




Greno #1, 2003
Greno #1 (half), 2003
66 × 54 inches




 Ed Moses: New Paintings

Major American abstract painter Ed Moses opens an exhibition of new paintings at Brian Gross Fine Art on Thursday, April 15, with a reception for the artist from 5:30-7:30pm. Moses' sixth exhibition with Brian Gross Fine Art will include his recent series of colorful, large-scale paintings, as well as works on mylar and a site-specific wall installation.

In this new series of paintings, Ed Moses continues to work with painterly gestural layers of rich, sensual color, creating spatially sophisticated compositions. Black, the predominant hue, is balanced by Moses' use of warm browns, rich oranges, and vibrant reds. Oscillating between areas of density and fluidity, these paintings create effects that are at once primal and poetically lyrical.

In Fracc, a vertical 5 by 4 foot canvas, black and red lines loop and splash across a deep orange ground, revealing a distinct intuitive gesture and a continuous spatial rhythm. A unique component of this exhibition will be a monumental wall installation measuring 8 feet high by 19 feet wide. In the installation, looping brush strokes in rich dark shades jostle across five off-white panels and provide a ground for a single work on canvas. Flecked with droplets and exuberant gestural strokes, the paintings are dynamic pictorial amalgams set in perpetual motion by Moses' distinctive Abstract Expressionist gesture.

Ed Moses was born in Long Beach, CA, in 1926 and received his BA and MA from the University of California, Los Angeles. His career began in the legendary Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1958; in the same year he exhibited at the Dilexi Gallery in San Francisco. Although it is not commonly known, Moses lived in San Francisco for a few years in the early sixties, where his housemates and friends in the legendary 'Ghost House' included Joan Brown, Jay DeFeo, Wally Hedrick and Manuel Neri. Moses became the focus of numerous solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe for the following forty years, and continues today.

In 1996, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles presented a full-scale retrospective of his career. His work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions and is included in the public collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Menil Foundation, Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others. Ed Moses currently lives and works in Venice, CA.