Rainer Fetting: Los Angeles Surfscapes

Surfers, and not the Internet kind, compose the majority of Rainer Fetting's latest group of paintings, set amid the sunny environs of Venice Beach, California (in contrast to his more typical urban subjects). Surfing as a subject of art has made a comeback worthy of Brian Wilson's Smile, as seen in Catherine Opie's photographs and Robert Longo's recent paintings, among others. Fetting's thick paint applied in simple adjacent lines flirts with abstraction but also conveys the power of waves, with matchstick-bodied surfers at nature's mercy. At other times, single firgures balancing on boards playfully allude to Botticelli's “The Birth of Venus” and Dufy-esque views from a beachside hotel capture California colors in a testament to the painter's versatility. And what's more Californian than a sunset--over a car?