As urban areas grow oppresively congested, a few avant garde artists like painter Ed Ruscha and sculpture Donald Judd and Michael Heizer have chosen to give up their urban environment for an alternative they deem more conducive to creativity. Though they have relocated in rural areas, their art retains it's urban themes and flavor. Painter Ming C. Lowe, who arrived in Palm Desert 20 years ago , is one of these expatriates.

In New York, Lowe uses a palette which consists largely of black, white and gray accented with acid yellow and various bright colors. A narrative thread concerning death and its consequences runs through many of the paintings, particularly in the series suggested by the Buddhist funeral of longtime friend and musician Paul Butterfield and in two works inspired by the execution of Gary Gilmore.

"Buddhist Way Out"  shows mourners at Butterfield's funeral gathering around his coffin in a prayer that his spirit be released to the astral plane. The mourners appear as faceless black forms defined by ghostlike white outlines. Butterfield visible in the coffin, is painted white (also faceless), his arms outstretched as if ready to take flight. The only color is found in his red "heart".

The narrative thread becomes literal here, and in several works in this series: Thin white threads or strings representing prayer or streams of conscious energy can be seen connecting the kneeling family members to the body. These symbolic threads are pictured again in three more large-scale paintings of the funeral entitled "Diamond Heart," "Double Burn" and "Death and Dominoes."

Lowe continues the death theme in different situations and locales with "Guatemalan Prayer, " "Portrait of Gary Gilmore," "Final Moments," "Mass Burial" and "St. Francis of Assisi's Tomb."

additional works such as "Headlights" (a violent portrait), "Portrait of Robert Medici," "Time" and "California Boy" offer diversion from this theme.

New Work affords a glimpse of an important artist who chooses to work and exhibit outside the urban area, and judging from the events Lowe has presented this season (screenings of rarely seen classic Surrealist films, "Las Hurdes" and "L'Age d'Or"), and Reception for New Work promises to be a memorable experience.