Pae White

Artist’s Statement

For the last several years, my practice has focused on an exploration of the neglected, the forgotten, the spaces between things, even the things between things. I am equally drawn to the temporary, the fleeting, to the ephemera of everyday life. My work has attempted to subvert the viewer’s expected relationship to an everyday object, nudging them off balance, encouraging a deeper look.

I like to take ordinary materials and simple, often conventional processes to achieve this – using paper shapes strung on thread to capture the feeling of a swarm of bees; freezing a moment of smoke or crumpled tin foil in the loomed wool of a Flemish tapestry; referencing an unknown narrative about a city in the seat fabric of its buses; evoking memories of home in Los Angeles by creating tacos and taco trucks out of marzipan in the window of a pastry shop in Meunster, Germany; forming out of canvas-wrapped metal the fallen leaves of California sycamores for a show in Milan, Italy; celebrating the local fauna of the Hudson River Valley by making cast-iron barbecues in their shapes; foregrounding the architecture of spiders by placing webs on colored paper and framing them; and on and on.

My goal is to cause viewers to stop and consider the bits and pieces of our lives that are most often overlooked, perhaps suggesting a more comprehensive reconsideration of the world around us, even to ask ourselves: What is important to us? What are we seeing? What are we not seeing?

Biography

Select Solo Exhibitions

2009
2 Person exhibition with Daniel Buren, Xavier Huskens, Brussels, Belgium
1301PE, Los Angeles
New Langton Arts, San Francisco

2008
Lisa Bright and Dark, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Ariz.
2 Person show with TJ Wilcox, Gavlak, West Palm Beach, Fla.
Mr. Baci e Abracci, galleria francesca kaufmann, Milan, Italy

2007
2 Person show with Virgil Marti, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington
Get Well Soon, greengrassi, London

2006
NW for NZ, Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
Midnight, Skestos Gabriele, Chicago
In no particular order, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom

2005
Another Cherry Blossom, greengrassi, London
Cottonmouth, neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Bazar, Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris

2004
UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Amps and Ohms, centre d’art contemporain la Synagogue de Delme, Delme, France
Ohms and Amps, Le Salle de Bains, Lyon, France

2003
Giraffes, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, Germany
(untitled), Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles
Fire `n’ Nice, 1301PE, Los Angeles

2002
Chamois, Sespe and Foggy, galleria francesca kaufmann, Milan, Italy
Ghost Towns, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
A grotto, some nightfish and a second city, Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

2001
1301PE, Los Angeles
Galleria Francesca Kaufmann, Milan, Italy
Birds and Ships, neugerriemschneider, Berlin

2000
China Art Objects Galleries, Los Angeles
1301PE, Los Angeles

Select Group Exhibitions

2009
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Mind The Step, 1301PE, Los Angeles
A House is Not A Home, La Calmeterie, Nazelles, France

2008
Cohabitation, 13 artists and collage, galleria francesca kaufmann, Milan, Italy
Shhoener Wohner, Neugerreimschneider, Berlin, Germany
MEXICO: Expected/Unexpected, Collection of Agustín et Isabel Coppel, Maison Rouge, Paris, France

2007
Half Square, Half Crazy, Villa Arson, Nice, France
Skulpture Projekte Munster 07, Muenster, Germany
If Everybody Had an Ocean, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall, United Kingdom

2006
Kit-O-Parts, CAN, Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Collage Effect, 1301PE, Los Angeles
We Can do this Now, The Power Plant, Toronto

2005
Extreme Abstraction, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.
The Lateral Slip, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California Riverside, Riverside, Calif.
Life on the Screens, Les Filles du Calvaire, Brussels, Belgium

2004
The Secret History of Clay, Tate, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Strike, ICA, Philadelphia
Strange Weather, Modern Art, London

2003
Watershed, Minetta Brook, New York
Breathing Water, Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich, Switzerland
Utopia Station, Venice Bienale, Venice, Italy

2002
Hell, Neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Richard Hawkins, Stan Kaplan and Pae White, Richard Telles Gallery, Los Angeles
Intangible, exposición homenaja a Luis Barragán, Casa ITESO Clavigero, Guadalajara, Mexico

2000
LA, Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers, Cologne, Germany
Cheeseburger, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Hamburg, Germany
Circles º3, Zentrum für Kunst and Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany

Select Special Projects/Public Commissions

2011
McCarren Pool, New York

2010
North Embarcadero Visionary Plan, San Diego

2009
W Hotel, Los Angeles
MGM, Las Vegas
Gloucester Road Tube Station, London

2008
MetaFoil, Stage Curtain for New Opera House, Oslo, Norway
Bugscreen, Celebreeze Plaza, Cleveland

2007
DLD07, Munich Germany Artist Project, Munich, Germany
Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia

2005
Unknown Celebration, billboard project, Barts and the London NHS Trust, London
corner to column – a crawling painting…. Mural commission, Deka Bank, Frankfurt, Germany

2004
Rover Momentum,artist’s project for the Frieze art fair, London

2003
MultipliCity, Metro Rapid Line with Tom Marble, AIA, Los Angeles

Grants

2007
Durfee Artists’ Resource for Completion grant

2003
Durfee Artists’ Resource for Completion grant
COLA (County of Los Angeles Artists’) Grant

EDUCATION

M.F.A., 1991
Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif.

B.A., 1985
BA Scripps College, Claremont, Calif.