E M I LY L A Z A R R E
E M I LY L A Z A R R E
PA I N T E D PA P E R
A SELECTION OF T WENT Y-T WO WORKS, 1998–2014
For Micky
LAZARRE’S COGNITA
In what assuredly is a gesture of willful abandon the customary confines of the rectangle are
breached. But not without unease. One is reminded of those early maps in which the known world,
explored and charted, jutted resolutely into the unknown, the terra incognita. Purchase of that incognita
informs Lazarre’s work.
A work of astonishing juxtaposed shapes and colors. Blue collides with blue. Darks are pricked
with the barest bits of bright green or yellow. Crimsons and magentas are solemnized with brown.
Greens with black. Only an unerring eye can find a way out of that forest. Even if the quadrilateral is not
violated, the white we expected to stay put in the margin has streaked into the darks and reds, leading us
around and around until we are finally “Returning Home.” Sometimes, missing at the border, the square
corners reappear, chasing each other, the muted pastels heaving themselves to the edge. A captured
strip of clean white margin startles, surrounded by gritty greens and smeared tarnished blacks. The
ochre and the ochred green rescue us from the menacing square black hole.
Lazarre’s cognita is disquieting. Fraught. Consider cutting and tearing painted sheets of paper
and pinning the pieces to the studio wall. The defiant borders. Bright pinks and lively yellows hardly
alleviate the fierce and somber work. Not until the struggle between the colors and the shapes of color
subsides, does Lazarre’s intense cognita rest in relieved balance.
Marguerite Kirk Harris
ABSTRACTION
I cannot remember a time when my mind was not filled with images . . .
the quality of light in a room, the shape of an object in my hands,
the color of the linoleum floor, the horizon line delicately separating
ocean from sky, a beach in fog.
Color is woven into my memory.
What was green, is green, what was blue, is still blue. Dark and light
are often predetermined.
As I work, a reverie of drifting remembrance encourages the harmony
and dissonance of relative shapes and colors. Images come to life again
in the layered painted paper.
The results are the abstractions of my life.
Emily Lazarre
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10
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19
20
21
22
1. SURROUND
2013
34 X 39 in.
12. NUCLEUS
2013
35 X 36 in.
2. STAYING POWER
2013
30 X 51 in.
13. TOSS
2014
42 X 33 in.
3. CLEARING
2008
36 X 38 in.
14. RETURNING HOME
2003
42 X 45 in.
4. CALLING
2010
36 X 38 in.
15 EXIT TO HOME
2008
41 X 36 in.
5. ONE ANOTHER
2012
32 X 50 in.
16. PINK PASSAGE
2002
45 X 30 in.
6. DUSK
2014
35 X 32 in.
17. FOR AN EMPTY SPACE
2012
35 X 48 in.
7. AFTER THE PIANO LESSON
2004
50 X 26 in.
18. DOUBLE STOP
2011
25 X 58 in.
8. SUSPENSION
2012
33 X 51 in.
19. MERGE
2014
33 X 42 in.
9. CROSS MY HEART
2000
50 X 35 in.
20. COMING INTO VIEW
1998
30 X 20 in.
10. NIGHT RUN
2013
27 X 55 in.
21. RED LEDGE
2008
40 X 35 in.
11. HOLD
2010
36 X 45 in.
22. HOLDING PATTERN
2014
39 X 35 in.
All works are collage, oil paint on paper.
Born, New York City 1946
Lives and works in Berkeley, California
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
2000–2013
Bolinas, CA
Fresno Museum, Fresno, CA
Greenfield, MA
Los Angeles, CA
New York, NY
Oakland, CA
Pullman, WA
San Francisco, CA
Sausalito, CA
Woodacre, CA
Robert F. Agrella Art Gallery, Santa Rosa, CA
Sandra Lee Gallery, San Francisco
SFMOMA Caffee Museo, San Francisco
Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Novato, CA
SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco
College of Marin, Kentfield, CA
Georgi Gallery, Berkeley, CA
Artworks Downtown, San Rafael, CA
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
505 Sansome St., San Francisco
Gallery Bershad, Somerville, MA
1990–1999
Gallery Two, Pullman, WA
Contract Design Center, San Francisco
Joan Roebuck Gallery, Lafayette, CA
Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, CA
Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA
San Francisco State University
Grants Pass Museum of Art, Grants Pass, OR
1977–1998
Studio M Gallery, Oakland, CA
Columbia College, Columbia, MO
Southern Exposure Gallery, San Francisco
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
California State University, Hayward, CA
Elizabeth Fortner Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco
Galeria del Sol, Santa Barbara, CA
White Bird Gallery, Cannon Beach, OR
LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS
Fresno Art Museum, Fresno CA
College of Marin, Kentfield, CA
University of California Berkeley, CA
Rogue Community College, Grants Pass, OR
Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Geselle Institute, Berkeley, CA
TEACHING
1990–2012
1993–1995
1984–1993
College of Marin, Kentfield, CA
University of California, Berkeley, CA
Walden School, Berkeley, CA
EDUCATION
MFA 1984
BA 1967
1960–1963
California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA
Queens College, City University of New York
High School of Music and Art, New York City
For their friendship, encouragement, and belief in my work over many years,
I am profoundly grateful to Paul and Meme Harris.
This book would not have been realized without their help.
Thanks also to Sibila Savage who has taken every photograph
with special care and expertise.
©2015 by Emily Lazarre
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States.
Production & typesetting: Margaret Tedesco
Printed by Solstice Press, Oakland, California