Jennifer Guidi: Full Moon

The volume documents the first institutional solo exhibition in China by the Los Angeles-based artist.

This monograph serves as a survey of the artist's work to date and also premieres a number of important new paintings. Full Moon epitomizes Jennifer Guidi's practice and the evolution of her artistic process.

Guidi's immersive work operates within both the physical and metaphysical world. Her abstract compositions refer to the natural world literally and visually as she mixes sand with paint to depict arresting natural and cosmological phenomena. Her surroundings of Los Angeles, where she set up her studio after graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago, are palpable through her work: the immense skies of California filled with the fleeting colour of sunrises and sunsets, the particular hazy light of Los Angeles that blurs colours together and casts deep shadows, and the mountains she passes daily on the way to her studio.

Her practice is, however, deeply rooted in what also lies beyond physical surroundings, in the spiritual and metaphysical worlds. Each of her paintings is an 'energy source' indebted to the power of vibrations, and her works incorporate recurring symbols related to Western and Eastern religions, ancient civilisations, and the esoteric sciences. Guidi's very process of creating these serene, repetitive works is akin to a meditative practice. Reveling in external and internal symmetry in her work, such as sunrise and sunset, light and dark, these ideas sit alongside a scientific study of geometry and colour theory, creating works that are not only visually in harmony but are epistemologically balanced too.

The title, Full Moon, emphasizes the cosmological and mystical roots of her practice; the moon is like life: constantly changing; it is representative of peace, prosperity, harmony, and luck, while the full moon is a time to be receptive and to connect.