Laura Rathe Fine Art announces Forgetting the Real, a duo exhibition featuring distinguished artists James Verbicky and Udo Nöger. LRFA will be hosting the opening reception on Saturday, May 18th, from 6-9pm at 2707 Colquitt St. 
 
Art poses questions and invites contemplation; manifesting what is beautiful and uncovering truths. In a media centered world, what is real is relative. A person’s view of the world is a perceived reality. Through his paintings, James Verbicky subtly exposes the media for manipulating thought and behavior to drive consumerism. In his collages, Verbicky uses vintage and current media clippings, dissecting them to form new messages. His work leads viewers to question the undeniable prevalence of popular imagery and its effect on modern life. 
 
Presented in complete juxtaposition to Verbicky’s work are the luminous abstract paintings of Udo Nöger. By reducing his color palette to an ethereal spectrum of a seemingly infinite range of white and grey tones, Udo’s paintings provide viewers with a resting point from the ever changing mediascape. Unrestricted to form, his multi- layered compositions create a dance of light: glowing, ricocheting and refracting. This openness allows us the time and space to ponder. 
 
The artworks in Forgetting the Real challenge viewers to go beyond the visual experience and look inward. 
 
The exhibition will be on display through June 22nd, 2019.
 
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
 
UDO NÖGER - Born in Germany and now based in Florida and Geneva, Nöger is widely renowned for his luminous abstract paintings, whose primary medium is nothing less than light itself.  With his innovative, process-intensive technique, the artist creates powerfully reductivist compositions in a range of whites and silvery grayscale tones.  While the paintings evoke the immaculate austerity of minimalism, they share a closer affinity with the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and 70s, for Nöger has long been interested in transcending the limitations of the painted canvas and expanding its possibilities.  
 
JAMES VERBICKY - Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada from Polish descent, James Verbicky now lives and works in Southern California.  In 2010, Verbicky debuted the media paintings, mixed media works that stimulate the viewer with both content and texture. Verbicky presents us with the result of decades of attempts to persuade, manipulate, and coerce through subtle and suggestive imagery. His works are at once deeply conceptual and hauntingly beautiful: their abstraction capturing both forgotten and persisting icons of media and reminding us that we are constantly being influenced.