Aline Cautis

I am uncomfortable with terming my work as abstract, because I am not sure I really have ever engaged in anything else. I was trained as an architect in a sort of Bauhaus environment, in terms of space, line, and color, etc. To me, these things are carriers of information and language. In fact, these paintings are not abstract, they explore all sorts of things without actually painting a picture. They are fragments of many, many, narratives. This is where history of painting and art fit in. I often reference several contradicting histories within one work. These references intend to function as narratives, which I attempt to reconcile through painting. They are also the residue of a practice exploring the limitations and edge of my own practice of painting, a form of self-portraiture. And sometimes they are not even really paintings. Every material and gesture in a painting is a decision that must be considered and represented, for this show the paintings are mostly self-portraits or function as frames. The multiplicity of types of schizophrenic decision making in the materiality or language between the works is meant as the illustration of an investigative process that has no real end in mind, but rather is more about the journey or self-propelled – additive narrative. [excerpt from Marcel Janco's interview with Aline Cautis, 2011]

Aline Cautis was born in 1975 in New York and has lived in Los Angeles since 2012. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Rice University in Houston, TX. Her work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions, including: Rabbit Hole, Niche Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); Vision Valley, The Pit, Los Angeles (2018); SECRETS, Private Places, Portland, Oregon (2018); LET LOVE BURN IN ALL THE LAMPS, Ms Barbers, Los Angeles (2016); No, Not, Regards Gallery, Chicago (2014, solo); Escape Strategies, Saturday Cinema, Chicago (2011, solo); Said, Unsaid, Devening Projects, Chicago (2008, solo); Duckrabbit, Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles (2014); Estate, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York (2012); Fridge, organized by Erin Foley, Control Room, Los Angeles (2012); Modern Talking, Museum of Art Cluj-Napoca (2012); Four Rooms, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw (2011); and the Prague Biennale, Czech Republic (2011). She is the recipient of a Fulbright Grant (2011) and a residency at the Vermont Studio Center (2008).