Leslie Allen, Arpeggio, oil on canvas over panel, 48 x 48″, 2013. Courtesy of Seager Gray Gallery.

Leslie Allen, The Kiss, oil on canvas over panel, 35 x 36″, 2013. Courtesy of Seager Gray Gallery

Opening tomorrow at Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley is “Cadenza”, a solo exhibition of paintings by Leslie Allen. The exhibition runs from July 2 – July 31. There will be a reception for the artist on Friday, July 12 from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full color catalog. As a part of the Mill Valley Artwalk, there will be a special preview of the exhibition next Tuesday, July 9 from 5 to 8 PM.

Nearly 30 years ago, Leslie Allen leased her first studio in Sausalito overlooking the water. Her exhibition, “Cadenza” celebrates these thirty years with a body of work that is a triumph of classical modernism, channeling with new vitality the spirit of her greatest influences, Richard Diebenkorn and Henri Matisse. Looking at her paintings one can’t help but think of Diebenkorn working from Sausalito years ago looking at the bay harbor when he had a studio there from 1947 to the end of 1949. Diebenkorn, for his part brought his own imaginings of Matisse in Collioure, the fishing village on the Mediterranean where he did some of his most important work. In these paintings, Allen has managed to utilize the Matisse-like use of pattern, flat shapes and high contrast while incorporating Diebenkorn’s keenly developed sense of structure and proportion. Her use of plumb lines to break up and ground more patterns
in the vivid blue space orchestrates the experience for the viewer into a slide show of the myriad shapes, colors and contrasts that daily enchant her in the view from her studio window.

For more information visit here.