Soka University proudly presents Arie A. Galles: HEARTLAND II Reflected-Light Paintings as part of its 10th Anniversary Celebration

About the Artist
Arie A. Galles is Professor of Art at Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, CA.  From 2004 through 2010 he also served as Director of the Creative Arts Program.

Galles was born in Uzbekistan, lived in Poland, Israel and Italy.  In 1968 he received a BFA from the Tyler School of Fine Arts of Temple University, Philadelphia, and in 1971 an MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  He has taught at the University of Wisconsin, Janesville and Madison campuses, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, University of California at San Diego, CA, and Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ.

Arie A. Galles works with light.  He works with the glowing radiation of fluorescent color, painted on a vertical armature of aluminum extrusions, reflected onto a white surface.  The images are nonphysical, existing in the gaps between the extrusions.  The images created in, and of, the shadows, are an “Anti-Shadow.”  The viewer is constantly involved in the contradiction between paint and light, the paradox between the physical and perceptual sensations of seeing.  Galles’ images challenge the viewer’s perceptions by simultaneously dividing the colors while heightening the color saturation of reflected light.  In the widely exhibited “Heartland” series of aerial landscapes he found the ideal synthesis of subject and technique.  These landscapes are pure light, and in essence, pure illusion.

In 1993, he stopped working on the “Heartland series.”  His work lost color.  For the next nine-and-a-half years he worked on his monumental suite of charcoal drawings, “Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet.”  The works are a Kaddish for those who perished during the Holocaust and have been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the country.

In 2004 he left Fairleigh Dickinson University for new challenges as Professor of Art and Director of Creative Arts at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, Ca.

At Soka University, in an outburst of color, Galles has returned to the “Heartland” series of Reflected-Light paintings.  In order to come in direct hand contact with the painting surface, he abandoned the airbrush for long bristled sable brushes.  With these new possibilities, and inherent limitations, Galles continues his visual exploration of color and light.

This exhibition also includes a number of Galles’ drawings and paintings. The iconography of the Reflected-Light paintings develops through a progression of color drawings in pencil, oil pastels and paint, works of art in their own right.  These culminate in full scale templates for the final works on aluminum extrusions.  The intensely hued two dimensional drawings don’t actually evolve into Galles’ finished pieces; rather, they metamorphose into unique three dimensional instruments resonating with luminosity.

In his Reflected-Light paintings, rather than using light to expose hidden flaws, Arie Galles uses light to bring beautifully radiating images into existence.

Soka University is a private, four-year liberal arts college and graduate school located on 103-acres overlooking a wilderness park in Aliso Viejo, CA. SUA offers a 9:1 student/faculty ratio and study abroad for every undergraduate student.  Soka University is founded upon the Buddhist principles of peace, human rights and the sanctity of life and is open to top students of all nationalities and beliefs.  About half of SUA’s students come from the US and half from more than 40 other countries. SUA offers a free tuition program to qualified admitted BA students whose parent’s annual earned family income is $60,000 or less.