This November, pioneering artist and Chouinard Art Institute alum Mary Corse (Chouinard 68) will be honored at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 14th Art+Film Gala, alongside filmmaker Ryan Coogler. Co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the event will take place on Saturday, Nov. 1 against the backdrop of the museum’s nearly completed David Geffen Galleries, a new Peter Zumthor–designed building scheduled to open in April 2026.
Corse has been a central figure in the Southern California art world since the 1960s. Often associated with the Light and Space movement, she has remained deeply committed to painting. She is best known for her minimalist, monochromatic canvases, which investigate the interplay of material, light, and human perception.
Corse’s early experiments with light boxes led her to shift away from examining objective reality, focusing instead on creating an inner, perceptual experience for the viewer. Her breakthrough came in the mid-1960s, when she began mixing acrylic paint with light-refracting microspheres—the same material used in highway lane dividers. Depending on the angle and conditions of light, brushstrokes may appear or vanish, transforming what seems like a flat monochrome into a textured, luminous surface. Even the viewer’s distance from the canvas alters its appearance, making perception itself the key element that activates the work.
Corse has continued to expand her investigations into how painting can hold and transmit light. In the past decade, she has introduced bold primary colors into her practice, extending her exploration of how color perception shifts from one individual to another.
Her first major survey, Mary Corse: A Survey in Light, was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2018 and at LACMA in 2019. More recently, her work has been exhibited internationally at the Long Museum in Shanghai and the Amorepacific Museum of Art in Seoul, as well as in a focused presentation at Dia: Beacon in New York. Today, her paintings can be found in the permanent collections of major institutions including LACMA; the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and Dia Beacon in New York; Centre Pompidou in Paris; and the Long Museum in Shanghai.
