Charles Arnoldi’s work can best be summed up as “post-minimal”: although he is a master of abstract color-field painting, he builds further, incorporating physical structure into his compositions. His employment of freeform and geometric elements — cut plywood, found sticks, and assembled canvases – shares equal importance with his sophisticated explorations into color relationships. The works, which have been described as “brutal and magically elegant”, manage to generate pure joy.
Arnoldi is a well-known figure in the Los Angeles art scene. He has exhibited regularly since the early 1970s alongside artists such as Ed Ruscha, Joe Goode and Billy Al Bengston. His extensive list of public collections includes the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA; Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; and the Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain.