Art and Alchemy Merge in Nancy Lorenz's Exhibition at San Diego Museum of Art

Nancy Lorenz: Moon Gold

San Diego Museum of Art

Thru September 3rd

Article by Cathy Breslaw

Nancy Lorenz     Palladium Relief 2017     Palladium leaf, clay, on burlap    2017

Moon Gold, organized by curator Ariel Plotek,  is a mid-career retrospective and first solo museum show for New York artist Nancy Lorenz. Her mostly large-scale paintings, installations, panel screens, drawings, sculptures and boxes include over 85 works, some of which were inspired by the San Diego Museum of Art Asian collection.  Having spent several years living in Japan as a young teen, Lorenz has been heavily influenced by the Japanese aesthetic. To earn a living, she was trained as a restorer of antique lacquer objects and simultaneously began using some of these same techniques in her art including the creation of large folding screens adorned with water-gilding and mother of pearl inlay, applying the gilding technique using palladium, platinum, yellow gold and silver. Lorenz also draws from her time studying in Italy from the traditional gilt artists and the influence of the 1960s’ Italian arte povera movement. Moon Gold Mountain (2018) for which the title of the exhibition originates, is a large vertical moon gold leaf, clay, cardboard painting on wood panel.  This abstract expressionistic work is typical of the themes and style of most of the works in the exhibition – suggestive gestural landscapes with various combinations of mountains, hills, skies, rain, wind and water elements.  Some of her works combine the use of accessible materials including cardboard, burlap, glass, wood, and jute string. Lorenz makes her own lacquer using shellac and pigment and uses a sculpting resin to transform packing cardboard into a ground for gilding and on these semi-corrugated surfaces, abstract scratches and patterns merge into landscape-like compositions . Her series called Pours is reminiscent of artist Lynda Benglis’s poured latex sculptures. Pours is a group of small works that include a mix of sumptuous, sensual gestures of water gilding gesso and blackened silver and red-gold on glass and cedar wood. One highlight of this exhibition is Rock Garden Room (2004) a twelve wood panel “room” using silver leaf, mother-of-pearl inlay, pigment, gesso and lacquer. Lorenz’s work has a connection to late Medieval and Renaissance gold ground panel painting. The works are part art, part alchemy – while altogether engaging and compelling, and well worth a visit.