Madelyn Jordon Fine Art is delighted to present Minimal | Maximal, a dual exhibition featuring works by David Kimball Anderson and Yangyang Pan. The exhibition will run from April 30 – June 11, 2022. The opening reception will be on Saturday, April 30 from 1:00-5:00pm.

The exhibition explores the essence of flowers through David Kimball Anderson and Yangyang Pan’s contrasting styles. Debuting new sculptures and paintings by the two artists, Minimal | Maximal presents juxtaposed interpretations of floral compositions.

Anderson’s minimalist approach can be likened to the Japanese art of Ikebana, designing flower arrangements to reflect harmony and balance between opposing elements. Elegantly simple in form and function, Anderson’s sculptures harness the Zen beauty of the natural world.

Throughout his forty-five-year career, Anderson’s sculpture has been described as “a contemplation on the meaning of things that give beauty and pleasure.” His life-sized, three-dimensional floral still life pieces, constructed in bronze, steel and paint, are diverse in color, shape, and species, depicting flowers, branches and seeds growing in his garden, from columbine to crocus. Contained in bronze molds of Asian antique bottles and vessels sourced from the artist’s personal collection, the sculptures can incorporate spheres configured to seasonal, astronomical transits, or man-made detritus found on daily walks. For example, in Planets, Seeds, Nasturtium, a large, found metal disc plays an unexpected role in a composition of painted flowers, seeds, and intertwined branches, sitting in a graceful, grey patinaed vase. These still-life constructions reinforce Anderson’s life-long pursuit to find beauty in all things, and merge his spiritual practice in nature-based artwork.

Conversely, Yangyang Pan’s maximal approach radiates across her canvases in floral bursts. Her flower arrangements become supernatural as large gestural brushstrokes whirl together in beautifully chaotic bouquets of saturated color. Pan is widely recognized for her gestural abstract paintings primarily focused on the contrasts found in nature. Her expressive visual language takes inspiration from her physical surroundings and personal memories, fusing it with spirit and spontaneity sourced from emotions within.

Pan’s love of flowers and gardens is central to her work; however, they are a means to an end. For Pan, flowers, gardens, nature are bound up with action painting, and the freedom she finds through artmaking. Thus, some paintings border on recognizable “pretty” bouquets, while others appear wild, aggressive, and totally abstract. Pan’s ab-ex style is simply a reflection of her personal journey, beginning in traditional Chinese art training from age 6, to her move West, where she was exposed to Western abstraction in depth.

David Kimball Anderson has exhibited his work in museums and galleries nationally for the past 40 years. A former assistant to Peter Voulkos, and Whitney Biennial participant, he received a Pollack-Krasner Foundation Grant, three NEA Arts Fellowships, and a California State University Research Grant. His work is in numerous public and private collections including Albright- Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY, National Endowment for the Arts, the World Bank, Art in Embassies, Washington, DC, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, TX; New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Albuquerque Museum and the City of Albuquerque, NM. From 1967-1971, he attended the San Francisco Art Institute.

Yangyang Pan (born 1976) studied at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute. Graduating with honors, Pan received her Bachelor of Arts in 1998 followed by a Master of Fine Art in 2002. She remained as an instructor until 2006 when she relocated to Canada. Since 2006, Pan exhibited internationally, including Canada, USA, Italy, and China, including 5 solo exhibitions at Madelyn Jordon Fine Art in New York. She received the Ontario Arts Council, Visual Artists Creation Projects Grant in 2020 and was awarded the Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition assistant award both in 2010 and 2019. In 2015, she completed a commission for Apple, where her work was displayed as the façade of a new Apple store in China. Her work is widely collected in numerous private and public institutions such as Government of Ontario Art Collection, Apple (USA), Royal Elite International Academy (Canada), The Rochester Museum of Fine Art (USA), The Sichuan Fine Art Institute (China) and retail giants including Holt Renfrew (Canada), Anthropologie (USA), Amour Vert (USA), Vdara Las Vegas, and Provide Commerce (USA).