Reynolds Gallery announces a solo exhibition of new paintings by Lee Piechocki in A  Dark Little Landscape Show, a solo exhibition of paintings on canvas and paper at our Main Street location.  The exhibition will open May 12, 2023 with a public reception with the artist from 5:00-8:00 pm.

The show will run through June 30, 2023. This exhibition runs concurrently with Sylvio Lynch III: Moments
And Departures, also at our Main Street location, and Sue Heatley: Floating: True To Form at our Libbie Avenue location, 401 Libbie Avenue. (see separate announcements).
About the Exhibition
Lee Piechocki makes paintings inspired by the landscape, both natural and artificial, of Los
Angeles and its surrounding areas. He is fascinated by the immense biodiversity in Southern California and its stark contrast with the artificial veneer found in Tinseltown. Piechocki is interested in the layering of fact and fiction, as reflected in his painting method of layering paint atop digital photography. Piechocki paints the watercolors en plein air from direct observation in
domestic and wild terrains. He also paints in his studio, guided by photos and drawings made during his walks. With the studio paintings, he uses acrylic and vinyl paints, employing an airbrush to explore photographic and cinematic effects. He enjoys playing with depth of field, color, space and light to explore the relationship between an observed environment and its translation to an illusionistic and abstracted depiction, as if distorted by memory.
Statement from the Artist
As a painter, I am attracted to flowers for their formal qualities; color, shape, texture. I am interested in the flower's place historically in painting. Flowers seem to be accepted in painting by everyone - seasoned art viewers as well as people outside the art world who have limited knowledge of and experience with paintings. This nearly universal acceptance makes
flowers a great subject to engage viewers and draw them in. Trojan-horse style. I hope my flowers can push the limited expectations. I would like my flowers to move beyond the traditional notions of the pretty, the feminine, etc. (although they definitely embody those notions
as well.) The names themselves can be revealing - Black Scabiosa, Red Anemone, Pink Poppy.
There is a range of evocative and nuanced feelings connected to the names alone, some sinister or threatening. Flowers are erotic, somber, fragile and powerful, delicate and, of course, beautiful.
Most commonly, I paint from the southern California landscape - which often includes flowers,
either wild in or cultivated in parks or yards. I think of these paintings as 'found' landscapes, as I
don't intervene at all but simply paint what I see. With the Anniversary and Valentine Flower
paintings, I went to the flower district - a six-block area in downtown LA with an endless variety of flowers brought in from all over the world. I discovered that selecting the flowers and making
these bouquets was fun and exciting. For the first time I decided to paint from these bouquets, opposed to the 'found' compositions of my landscape paintings, these were highly arranged.
This control over the subject allowed for arranging and rearranging and naturally led to a series.
About the Artist
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Lee Piechocki lives and works in Los
Angeles, California. He received his BFA from Ball State University (Muncie, IN). Piechocki spent formative years in Chicago, Illinois and Kansas City, Missouri, where he developed his studio practice before receiving his MFA in painting from Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA). Piechocki co-founded the Kansas City Plein Air Coterie (KCPAC) in 2010, organizing a small group of young artists to venture into the landscape to paint together. For Piechocki, painting
outdoors from observation has continued to be integral to his practice. Piechocki was a painting assistant for Mark Grotjahn in Los Angeles, California from 2016-2019. Here, he gained insight into the flow of an
internationally acclaimed artist’s studio. Since 2019, Piechocki has worked full-time as a studio painter and part-time as a drawing instructor at Cal State University (Los Angeles, CA).
Among other honors, Piechocki’s work is in the collection of The Nerman Museum of
Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS). He has exhibited at Museum of Museums (Seattle, WA), and he was selected by Anna Katz, Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, to be featured in issue 151 of New American Paintings (2021). Most recently, his work was included in the 2022 group exhibition The Innerworld of The Outerworld of The Innerworld at
Soy Capitan Gallery (Berlin, Germany).