What is it about the desert that speaks mystery to the artist? The sun-basked horizons by Ms. Madeleine Tonzi at Hashimoto Contemporary Los Angeles are magnetic in their presentation of an original gradient of purple and pink tones while delicately, yet appropriately, abstractly positioning geometrical and man-made constructions to give us an inviting, yet still happily enigmatic experience to each of her paintings.

‘Shadow Moon’ 2022. Acrylic on canvas
20 x 16 in. Courtesy of Madeleine Tonzi and Hashimoto Contemporary Los Angeles.

And it is in this distillation – possibly obsessive – of sunlight dusk and dawn toward an outwardly imaginary sweetness as the landscape is illuminated with the final word or new beginning of each starbright filled day, which provides us with an original perspective on what artist’s typically lacquer their works with: oranges, reds, and of course, yellows. Ms. Tonzi is not trying to force, to cajole, the subject matter – “sorbet sunsets” as she calls it – into bending obtusely away from the natural firmament. She is, instead, decorating, as a base substrate to her compositions, a candied collection of daylight. She makes considerate effort to leave out the common residues of sun pouring, yet, with her geographical elements, grounds our lens into perceiving, still, a novel iridescence which only the expansive-nakedness of desert twilight can fully accord to the mind’s eye.

‘Mirror Unfolding’ 2022. Acrylic on canvas
36 x 48 in. Courtesy of Madeleine Tonzi & Hashimoto Contemporary Los Angeles

The stark contrast of light and Earth, with man enjoying it all, is accentuated with her wonderful exercise of completeness in her fine contours. She is not hasty or muddied with where her objects begin and end. In fact, she is reminiscent of the natural boundaries a setting sun accords the human mind. She is therefore playing with such a willful sensation of end, which we sensibly experience when the sun retires for the evening. But Ms. Tonzi most coyly plays with what is originally natural contours which are projected with such a celestial toiling ending, to creatively extend the form of her objects.

‘Senses’ 2022. Acrylic on canvas
30 x 24 in. Courtesy of Madeleine Tonzi & Hashimoto Contemporary Los Angeles

And these objects are mysterious. Even their placements in the composition are delightfully obscure. Nevertheless, there is no impact of weight, of gravity, of a heavy and confusing distortionary fact of floating geometrical forms. They are as airy sweet as the back-drop. We do not experience a sense of conflict, of tension, with the inanimate. They levitate, giving us an idea of levity. And how relational that is towards man’s mastery of the Natural World! Where he can position his transcendental vision onto the world and its persistent memory! And yet, what ought that memory be? A pleasantly delicate one is no doubt ideal and achieved throughout Ms. Tonzi’s artwork, giving us a gently confident affirmation of desert harmony.