Launch Gallery is proud to present the solo exhibitions by artists whose work is defined by their monochromatic paintings in black. Both Todd Carpenter and Tom Pazderka examine landscape painting through use of materials and techniques that heighten and enhance the relationships and interactions among natural forces, history, science, and humanity. Todd Carpenter presents complex themes through richly detailed oil paintings examining landscapes in their natural and majestic stillness. While Tom Pazderka’s medium of paint and ash portrays the natural world violently disrupted by powerful forces of both nature and man.

Awestruck by the splendor of nature in all its manifestations of beauty and complexity, Tom Pazderka pays homage to it by documenting its energy and power. In 2016, Tom began photographing and collecting ash of local California wildfires. Combining ash with white oil paint on wood panels that he burned and charred with torches, Tom painted the pyrocumulous ash clouds produced by fires. Applied in thin layers, systematically, over long periods, the images emerge out of the ashy abyss. The subject matter of this body of work has slowly has begun to expand as Tom’s curiosity about human and natural power grows along with his command of this unique medium.

For this exhibition, I wanted to explore the similarities between human technology and the forces of nature, to put the atomic bomb explosion on a similar footing with an exploding volcano or a massive wildfire, not so much for their magnitude, but for the awe, reverence and fear they inspire. That an exhibition of ash clouds and explosions coincides with one of the worst wildfire disasters in Los Angeles history is not lost on me. In the ten years I’ve lived in Southern California I’ve had close calls with the raging fury of fires. They are dangerous, and often apocalyptic and today an ever present reality waiting to erupt at any moment. It is that strange ‘subconscious’ of the Southern California landscape that continues to inspire my work.

(Tom Pazderka)

Tom Pazderka is a Czech American painter, installation artist, writer, and curator. His work interrogates ideology, nostalgia, loss, and belonging using a black-and-white palette of ash and oil. Pazderka’s solo exhibitions include Gallery 825 (Los Angeles, CA), Bender Gallery (Asheville, NC), Silo118 (Santa Barbara, CA) and The Basic Premise (Ojai, CA) with group exhibitions at Santa Monica Art Museum, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center in Cullowhee, NC, Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara, Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai and the Santa Barbara Center for Art Science and Technology.

As Curator for the Santa Barbara County Office of Arts and Culture, Tom engages the county community and artists to produce and exhibit art in public spaces and galleries. Prior to serving as County Office of Arts and Culture Curator, he served as our Lead Preparator and Exhibitions Designer since 2017. He also held significant roles with the UCSB Art, Design and Architecture Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara.