Angela Johal is a native Californian and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1960s and 70s and graduated in 1985 from San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting. Her smooth, pristine, geometric and hard edge paintings are reflective of the psychedelic and hard edge painters of that period. Today, her paintings are shown in multiple galleries throughout the US and Canada and are collected nationally and internationally. She currently paints full time from her San Francisco Bay Area studio. This show features Johal's Variations on a Theme and Rhythm & Colour paintings, two of her series that she keeps reinventing and building upon. She believes that her paintings are easily understood, yet complicated at the same time in that there are complex optical, transparent and three-dimensional illusions present in her work. Geometric shapes and designs are understood by all cultures, peoples, ages and races and this common connection is important to her.Johal's process begins with a strong composition which she then transfers onto her canvas with a pencil, straight-edge and compass. Paint colors are chosen intuitively while listening to music, where there is a chromesthetic experience, a blending of the senses. Johal borrows from the musical term, "variations on a theme' which echoes the form of music that begins with a main melody, the theme, and is then altered or changed in some way throughout the piece which are called variations. Johal's initial composition becomes the theme, and with color, explores many variations of that theme. Her Variations on a Theme No. 47 painting in the exhibition is her most recent painting in this series, where she initially took multiples of her 3-part square design and played with them by hand until she came up with this fun and energetic composition.For the Rhythm & Colour No. 38-41 paintings, Johal varies the intersecting dot arrangements, with each creating an illusion of transparency where two colors intersect. Each dot color jumps to the opposite end of the intersecting color which also gives the center an illusion of a color gradation. No.38 has a layering of multiple diagonal dots, No. 39 has illusions of shadows where the dots appear to be floating, No.40 gives a horizontal view of the intersecting dots and No. 41 has the dots touching which creates rounded diamond shapes in the negative spaces. There is a nice back and forth rhythm to these intersecting dots, after dots appear and dance about in the white areas and there is also a planetary appearance to these paintings. The dots even emanate in low light. Johal's paintings are not for the spectator, but beckon for interaction, where the viewer is drawn into her paintings and become engaged, active and an integral part to completing the piece which she believes has a positive, meditative and calming effect on the viewer.Instagram: johal_geometricsWebsite: johalgeometrics.comArtist photo by Eva Schwank