Plein Air

Los Angeles-based artist Sam Falls' (born 1984) newest publication, Plein Air, documents a year the artist spent outdoors making his large-scale pigment-on-canvas paintings in four separate locations around the world: Hartland, Vermont; Venice, California; Hudson, New York; and Sarvisalo, Finland. Nature has always been a principle theme in Falls' work and the splendor and unpredictability with which the seasons change is transferred directly onto his canvas through the use of saturated pigments and the natural elements. The resulting paintings are lush, familiar silhouettes of ferns, flowers and the boughs of native trees. Four concise texts--naturalist and analytical in turn--by Hammer Museum curator Aram Moshayedi accompany each location and body of work.