Though lichens often obscure the carving and lettering on churchyard memorials their form is attractive and headstones look sterile and bleak when cleaned.

– Jack R. Laundon, “Lichens” 1986

The Approach is pleased to present Lichens by LA based painter Anna Glantz, her second solo exhibition at the gallery. For this show, Glantz has produced eight oil paintings of varying scales that move between figuration, almost-landscape and nearly-abstract. Apple greens blend with gallery floor greys and midnight blues. Features emerge from the canvas surface: a stocky foot, a benecklaced goose, the sun rising over a hill, an enamel floral pin.

While the imagery is mostly recognizable, narrative is consciously pushed to the side. The paintings resist being “about” one thing or another, and instead do something closer to brooding. They fixate and simmer, but often with a lightly decorative touch. Glantz works intuitively, building up the paint slowly over time. As though writing a poem, she edits, revises, and bit by bit, pushes the work toward a moment when the image might lock into place and begin to reverberate on its own.

Anna Glantz (b. 1989 Concord, MA) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo exhibitions include: Cement Answers, Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); Baby Grand, The Approach, London (2020); Cyclops, Foxy Production, New York; solo presentation at Independent New York with The Approach (both 2019); Anna Glantz, PAGE (NYC), New York (2018); Stones for Sandman, 11R, New York (2016); Horse in the Road, Topless, Rockaway Beach, NY (2015). A recent selection of group exhibitions includes: The Stands-Ins: Figurative Painting from the Collection, Zabludowicz Collection, London (2022); Therein / Thereof / Thereto, Standard (OSLO), Oslo (2021); A Love Letter to a Nightmare, Petzel Gallery, New York (2020); Club Damfino, PAGE (NYC), New York Tiny Hands, Sommer Gallery, Tel Aviv; Portraits, Foxy Production, New York; The Pictionary Individual, organized by Peter Harkawik, Real Pain Fine Arts, Los Angeles (all 2019).