Pharmaka is pleased to present "TRANSformal" the Los Angeles manifestation in a series of international traveling shows by nine artists who are all engaged in a dialogue about Abstract Painting.

Begun as a conversation between Richard Schur in Munich and Mel Prest in San Francisco, TRANS has grown into an exhibition with nine artists. Three of the artists live in Munich Germany, four artists live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, one in upstate New York and one lives and works in Tokyo Japan. The TRANS concept is to work with artists to engage other artists and the broader painting audience through an international painting exchange.

The show poses questions of cultural/aesthetic difference, as well as, the ways that the works align both formally and conceptually. With a range of abstraction spanning hard-edge, optical, minimal, expressive and conceptual, the exhibition joins today's contemporary painting dialogue. This convergence of approach and locale creates a dynamic and timely exhibition.

TRANS:Abstraktion opened in November 2007 at Weltraum, a non-profit gallery space in Munich, Germany. In November 2009 TRANS will travel to the Meridian Gallery, another non-profit space in San Francisco. Each show will have new work by each artist --thus keeping a fresh and ongoing dialogue.