PAST EXHIBITIONS 2024
Proximity: 2
Joni Marie Theodorsen and Brandon Larson
May 30 to June 29, 2024
Proximity: 2 features paintings by Gearbox Gallery artist Joni Marie Theodorsen and guest artist Brandon Larson. Painting in proximity for over 25 years, this exhibition of new work created in their shared Oakland studio highlights a dialogue that speaks of a mutual interest in process-based abstraction, and formal investigations, yet delves into their own respective painting languages.
Having met during their artistic formative years, these artists have relied on each other’s opinions, experience and mutual respect throughout their painting careers. While not strictly artistic collaborators, neither are their practices completely separate.
Both artists are concerned with line, surface and mark making, while taking different approaches.Theodorsen is interested in accumulation and calligraphic line assembled in more historical landscape constructs. Larson’s color-drenched paintings contain a more narrative line, creating personal iconographic compositions.
Proximity: 2 continues a conversation in painting last held in public 10 years ago at the now-defunct Fountain Art Space in Brooklyn, NY.
Above image left, Joni Marie Theodorsen, ‘San Francisco Chronicle, Ocean Beach’, oil, graphite & newspaper on panel, 48 inches, 2023;
right, Brandon Larson, ‘Confectionary Compendium’, oil on linen over panel, 18x24 inches, 2024
Joni Marie Theodorsen, ‘The Sunset Ends at Ocean Beach’, oil, graphite & newspaper on 2 panels, 60x48 inches, 2024
About Joni Marie Theodorsen
Joni Marie Theodorsen is a process-based abstract painter. Growing up in the Bay Area and central coast, she has been creating horizon dominated paintings and constructions for the last 15 years. Her work is created through accumulation of line, yet rooted in a reductive process. Theodorsen works cyclically, creating newspaper font oil paintings, black watercolors, and 3-D landscape models, each informing the next. Interested in open spaces and atmosphere, Theodorsen considers her work landscapes.
Brandon Larson, ‘Revised Hallucination’, oil on linen 12x18 inches, 2021
About Brandon Larson
Brandon Larson is an Oakland based painter working in oil & watercolor, in modes both abstract and representational. In this body of work, Larson looks to the visual languages of archaic art and ancient forms, both human and natural, to establish his own painting dialect. Larson uses these sources and an examination of the process of improvisation to develop paintings that reveal a pictorial language idiosyncratic and personal, with the paintings approaching a narrative character despite their roots in abstraction.
Proximity 2: Joni Marie Theodorsen & Brandon Larson
Proximity 2: Joni Marie Theodorsen & Brandon Larson
Proximity 2, work by Brandon Larson
Proximity 2: Joni Marie Theodorsen & Brandon Larson
Joni Theodorsen, 3 Part Storm, 2024, oil, graphite & newspaper on 3 panels, 72" x 24"
Brandon Larson top, Hallucination of the Origins of Agriculture, 2024, 20" x 24", bottom, Hallucination for a Cupola, 2024, 20" x 24"
Left: Brandon Larson, Worm and Diamond (Diamond and Worm), 2024, oil on canvas, 24" x 18" ;right, Joni Theodorsen, San Francisco Chronicle at Ocean Beach, 48" diameter
Brandon Larson, Worm and Diamond (Diamond and Worm), 2024, oil on canvas, 24" x 18"
Brandon Larson, Moving Mountain, 2024, oil on linen, 18" x 24"
Joni Marie Theodorsen, The Sunset Ends at Ocean Beach, 2024, oil, graphite, San Francisco Chronicle on 2 panels, 60" x 48"