Jayme Odgers’ watercolor portraits signal a departure from his typographic works, in which words are both the subject and object.  With the portraits however, honest renderings of photographs taken by the artist of his friends, the object becomes the subject.  The portraits are demonstrative of a high skill set. The sophisticated use of watercolors paired with a steady hand and astute sensitivity to expression reveal an exacting portrait of the artist.

Please join us for the opening reception of this exceptional solo show on Saturday, October 17th, 2009, 6 – 10 pm.

Lawrence Asher Gallery is located at 5820 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and adjacent to the Craft and Folk Art Museum. For more information, please call 323.935.9100 or visit www.lawrenceasher.com

The Artist

Jayme Odgers - I paint portraits with watercolor as much for philosophical reasons as for technical ones.

Aesthetically as well as physically, a portrait done in oil is an enduring testament to the person which will outlast the life span of the sitter.  Besides capturing a particular likeness, the paint rests on top of the surface. Properly cared for, it’s durable; and there’s an implied monumentality, a sense of gravitas that you can’t achieve with watercolor. You can also touch-up a portrait in oil.  Try doing that with one done in watercolor. Oil allows for all sorts of effects to be used for any number of expressive purposes. You can add texture to the portrait, make changes at will. Watercolor is an irreversible one-shot idea.

When I paint a portrait in watercolor, though, I want to capture a particular moment of vulnerability that I perceive within the sitter. The paper on which it’s painted is more fragile than the canvas on which another artist would daub oil. There’s a life cycle of the work itself that roughly parallels that of the sitter. Watercolor allows me to merge the color with the paper, to simulate simultaneous moods or even the actual flow of blood beneath the skin. The paper, in fact, acts as skin, and the result is more tattoo-like.

Though their features are rendered as clearly as necessary, my subjects are placed against nondistinct, suggestive, maybe timeless, backgrounds. Their faces may be expressive but each remains on the verge of disclosure. The sitter appears to be there, as plain as day, in that particular space; but, in the guise of clerical garb (which offers a whole other set of associations) or with seemingly disinterested, paused facial expressions, they’re anywhere but here. I like to think we can sense them thinking, perhaps of us as we think about them. Therefore “self and other” disappear momentarily. – J.O.

Born in Butte, Montana, Jayme Odgers graduated from The Art Center School in Los Angeles with a Bachelors Degree in Art with Great Distinction. In 1966, Odgers was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study in Europe. During this time, he was honored with over 100 awards of excellence in design including Gold and Silver Medal Awards plus an international silver Typomundus Award for Excellence in typography

His work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Art,

Arco Center for the Visual Arts, The Albright Knox Museum and the Montreal Museum of

Fine Arts, the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City and the White House in Washington, D.C. Jayme’s poster for the Academy of

Television Arts & Sciences was included in the Walker Art Center’s 1984 landmark show,

Posters of The Century: Design of the Avant Garde along with works by Rodchenko,

Man Ray and Paul Rand. Numerous books and articles have included Odgers’ work as have consecutive issues of Who’s Who. In addition to teaching at The Art Center School and its later incarnation, the Art Center College of Design, the California Institute of the Arts and Otis-Parsons in Los Angeles, Jayme has guest taught and lectured extensively. Most recently he toured and lectured in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, Japan at the invitation of the Tokyo Gakuin.

His most recent public art commission has been the design of two water fountains for the plaza of the Metropolitan Water District’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.