July Guzman / Sol Summers

LOS ANGELES, CA | albertz benda is pleased to present a two-artist exhibition of new landscape paintings by July Guzman and Sol Summers at its Los Angeles location. On view from October 1 through November 6, the exhibition places Guzman's seascapes in dialogue with Summers's paintings of the American West. Across distinct geographies and approaches, both artists use light, atmosphere, composition, and color to move between observed landscape and the perceptual habits through which place is seen.

Summers draws on landscapes across Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado, approaching the American West as both place and perceptual field. Atmospheric phenomena, lens flares, and saturated shifts at sunrise and sunset expose the idiosyncrasies of a visual language shaped by photography, including effects viewers become so acculturated to that they pass unnoticed. In dialogue with Arthur Wesley Dow and Agnes Pelton, Summers uses color, composition, and luminosity to make familiar terrain strange again.

Drawing on seascapes near Bolinas, California, Guzman returns repeatedly to the ocean while allowing each painting to develop on its own terms. The works range in degree of realism: some describe the detail and force of a breaking wave, while others distill the scene to light meeting a horizon. Rather than adhering to a fixed style, Guzman allows atmosphere to determine the form each view takes.

Seen together, Guzman's seascapes and Summers's landscapes of the American West reveal parallel ways of using light to unsettle the familiar. The exhibition considers how atmosphere, composition, memory, and learned habits of seeing give each view its distinct identity and determine what remains visible or slips from notice.