The drawings in this exhibition were created some fifty years ago. They are from a series that were transitional to the fuller development of David Ligare’s signature work; the classical balance of opposites and the transient nature of time.

Ligare was raised in Los Angeles and, after two years serving in the US Army, he moved to Big Sur in 1968. Initially, his work was directly inspired by the vast natural beauty of the area. Highly representational landscapes in watercolor, gauche and oil were his initial output. Although living in this fairly remote area, he maintained a strong link with New York through travel and regular exhibitions there.  He had, and maintains, a keen interest in the everchanging ideas and movements of contemporary art. It was while living in Big Sur that Ligare began this series of works based on the opposing principles of abstraction and representation.

The steps involved in making these are several. They began with the artist visiting the beach below his Big Sur home and drawing directly with his fingers and hands in the wet sand. The swift action of drawing was intuitive and gestural, not unlike the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists. All are non-representational.

Once the sand drawing was completed Ligare photographed it. The transitory tide would eventually erase the work but the camera made a clear record with the late afternoon light raking across the ridges and mounds of sand. It was from these photographs that the final works were then created.

The jagged, quick and direct marks were skillfully rendered in two dimensions onto paper or canvas using pencils of varying softness. Some are drawn onto surfaces primed with paint containing aluminum powder giving them an underlying metallic sheen to accompany the softer reflective quality of the graphite. 

 A one-person exhibition of these works was shown in New York at Andrew Crispo Gallery in 1973. Several of the works from that exhibition are included here. Additional works from this series are held by private collectors as well as institutions including the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC, Chicago Art Institute, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

It is with sincere thanks that the artist wishes to thank Bernard Trainor for encouraging and mounting this exhibition in cooperation with Winfield Gallery in Carmel.