Leslie Sacks Contemporary is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Los Angeles- based artist Alex Weinstein. The exhibition will feature oil paintings and a large-scale sculptural installation.

Alex Weinstein’s work relates to that of the early Romantics and Impressionists, including Caspar David Friedrich, J.W.M. Turner and Claude Monet. He shares these artists’ interest in pushing identifiable imagery to the absolute edge of recognition. Weinstein’s latest seascape paintings are diptych oils on panel, blending the line between representation and abstraction. Singularly, each panel is an abstract color field painting; together as a diptych, the ocean imagery takes shape, as the two panels ground one another in realism. The paintings capture the ever-changing nature of the ocean and its environment, exploring light and color. In the tradition of the 19th century Romantic and Sublime painters, the work invokes a transcendental viewing experience, whereby a spiritual encounter can be had without the presence of figuration. Weinstein sees the work existing in a lineage uniting artists as chronologically distanced as Friedrich, Monet, Rothko, Gerhard Richter and Brice Marden.

The exhibition will feature a massive 15 x 20 foot sculptural installation comprised of twelve 5 x 5 foot fiberglass panels depicting the ocean surface. The scale and magnitude of this “wall of water” is an homage to Katsushika Hokusai’s Great Wave and a direct reference to the natural phenomenon of a tsunami. Weinstein’s use of automotive paint and fiberglass yields a high gloss finish, which reflects light from every angle, revealing a depth and spectrum of color in each panel. True to the ephemeral nature of the ocean itself, the surface appears to shift constantly and is visually elusive. The materials and the lustrous finish are a nod to the Los Angeles movement of Finish Fetish, contemporizing a 19th century idea of capturing the sublime.

Alex Weinstein’s work is held in significant private and corporate collections and is in the permanent collection of the Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California. His work was featured in the highly regarded 2010 Swell show in New York City, where he was mentioned in Roberta Smith’s New York Times review.