Jack Reilly: Circles of Time

bG presents an exhibition of the latest body of work by artist Jack Reilly. Jack begins on a circular structure. This creates a visual container to explore the endless repetition and nature of time and space. The outlying edges of these circular paintings consist of rapidly applied, highly chromatic brushstrokes, compressed within hard-edge boundaries that circle the exterior regions of the canvas.

Jack’s signature brushwork surrounds the circle, it has been compared to the complexities of stained glass and Byzantine mosaics. Within the center of these circular objects, lie a wide-open space. A sort of an abyss where soft fields of color appear to float somewhere behind the circular edges of the canvas. Within these soft fields of color, one can get lost in the ambiguity of space, contemplate its meaning, or meditate upon the object itself.

Jack Reilly is known for blurring the lines between sculpture and painting, coming to prominence in the 1970s. In 1979, the Molly Barnes Gallery on La Cienega presented a solo exhibition of Reilly’s abstract paintings. These new shaped canvases were met with critical acclaim by the Los Angeles Times, Artweek, and Arts Magazine. That same year, Reilly received a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Reilly’s paintings were included in the collections of such notables as Fred and Marcia Weisman, Steve Martin, and Daniel Melnick.