Link to Post:
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2013/04/inspired-by-guernica-judy-glantzman.html
Sharon Butler blogs about Judy Glantzman's new work, on view at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, through May 11, 2013.
Butler writes that: "After seeing Pablo Picasso's Guernica for the first time three years ago, Judy Glantzman began moving away from the introspective self-portraits she had been making for many years toward a less self-engaged exploration of war and its societal impact. Determined that she was done with psychological self examination, Glantzman set out to develop a new outward-looking visual language."
In her artist statement on the gallery website, Glantzman, writes: "All of my work is like a flashlight on the dark underbelly that exists under the surface of polite society. The United States is engaged in wars without any impact on our daily life. My work always had the macabre, and I wanted to marinate in my natural impulse, no holds barred. I felt that I understood the language of the psychological self-portrait and I wanted to try to invent a new language for myself."
Link to Post:
http://youtu.be/xjO1Nv8EETc
James Kalm video blogs a visit to the recent exhibition Ben La Rocco: Fugue State at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, Brooklyn.
Kalm writes that "La Rocco directs his painterly investigation into a realm of physics and astronomy as graphic representations. Transcribing concepts like the relationship between the scale of humanity and planetary bodies like the sun, these paintings evoke a poetic interpretation of mans relation to the cosmos. Working on a horizontal format of wooden planks, many of these pieces read like a symbolic diagram of human versus astronomical perceptions spread on a horizontal plane." La Rocco also discussed the exhibition in a recent interview with Thomas Micchelli.
Submitted by Brett Baker on April 25, 2013
Carrie Moyer, Herr Doktor, 2012, acrylic, glitter on canvas, 60 x 72 inches (courtesy of the artist)
Carrie Moyer: Pirate Jenny is on view at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY from January 26 - May 19, 2013.
The following video, produced by the Tang Museum, shows painter Carrie Moyer at work in the studio. She describes her process, which begins with small black and white collages, and discusses her influences - including Miro's The Farm (1921–1922) and paintings by Christian Schad and Alexej von Jawlensky. She also talks about how she arrived at her current body of work:
Link to Post:
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/conversations/2013-04-25/becoming-adults-the-paintings-of-elena-sisto/
Julian Kreimer interviews painter Elena Sisto on the occasion of the exhibtion Between Silver Light and Orange Shadow: Paintings by Elena Sisto at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through May 25, 2013.
Asked about the "line between abstraction and figuration," Sisto comments: "To say a painting is abstract doesn't necessarily mean it has no figures in it; it means that it's constructed abstractly. We're living in a moment when we see so many images all the time. People are looking at them iconographically. There's a lot more to a painting than just how the iconography reads. That's why it's very important to me if someone goes up close to my painting. When you look at one of my paintings, I want you to look at it and say, "Oh, I know what that is." And as soon as you start looking at it, the abstraction carries your eye off in an unexpected way."
Link to Post:
http://www.theartblog.org/2013/04/brian-cyphers-science-fueled-lines-spaces-and-shapes-at-bushwicks-new-schema-projects/
Elizabeth Johnson reviews the exhibition Brian Cypher: Survey, works on paper at Schema Projects, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through April 28, 2013.
Johnson writes: "Working like André Masson and other Surrealists à la Automatic Drawing, Cypher is content in that sweet spot of action without a plan; humorously, he parses fragments of the analytical, plan-based sciences and math and subverts their official purpose by dismantling order from within. Snipping, morphing and recombining parabolas, ellipses, triangles and squares, Cypher experiments with repeated line and color like a chemist."
Link to Post:
http://ffffffwalls.com/2013/04/trudy-benson-navy-yard/
Jonathan Chapline and Lorraine Nam visit Trudy Benson's studio on the occasion of her solo exhibition Paint at Horton Gallery, New York, on view from April 25 - June 2 , 2013.
Benson discusses her process: "For the most part for these paintings, I feel like they are a collage of different painting moves and I approach it the same way you would if you’re making a Photoshop file... In the beginning of the painting, it happens really fast and I can do the first four to five moves pretty fast within one to two days and even up to the first oil move. Then after the first oil paint move, I can only think one step ahead. Even if I try, I sometimes forget what I’m planning on doing and I might change my mind too. Sometimes I work on a few different ideas. There’s a lot of painting that happens outside of the studio at this point. In the work in my last show, I was using a different medium, so things would happen a lot faster. Now everything is drying slow but I actually like that I can be more selective about what moves I make and I actually enjoy taking more time in between steps."
Link to Post:
http://glasstire.com/2013/04/23/forrest-bess-seeing-things-invisible/
Robert Boyd reviews the exhibition Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible at the Menil Collection, Houston, TX, on view through August 18, 2013.
Boyd writes: " ...whether we understand the symbols or not, they tell us one very important thing–Bess was no formalist. He isn’t trying to arrange colors and shapes in an interesting, aesthetically pleasing way. I see his work as a compulsion, a need to get what he was seeing in his mind down on canvas... This kind of painting–symbolic, Jungian, mythic–was almost a movement in the days before Abstract Expressionism rose. Artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko dabbled in this sort of primitive surrealist symbology. Think of Pollock’s Male and Female (1942) or The She Wolf (1943), for example. It’s hard to say that Bess was a part of that tradition since he was so isolated, but the works have a lot of similarities. Pollock and Rothko moved on. For Bess, contending with his visions was a life-long pursuit."
Link to Post:
http://blog.artsinbushwick.org/post/48627140926/paul-pagk-18-drawings-and-1-painting
Christopher Stout blogs about the exhibition Paul Pagk: 18 Drawings and 1 Painting at Studio 10 Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through May 5, 2013.
Stout writes: "The drawings are all wonderful; however, the new painting, keenly titled Double Entente, stands out as the high point of the exhibition. [Gallery Director Lawrence] Greenberg describes Double Entente as, 'A large painting of cadmium maroon and white … divided by two white parallel elements. The strict, incised forms strike like austere hieroglyphs through the thickly layered skin of the ground. Image, surface and linear activity are equally subjects of the composition for Pagk.'"
Link to Post:
http://aeqai.com/main/2013/04/william-mcgee-works-1954-1977/
Emil Robinson reviews the recent exhibition William McGee Works 1954-1977 at Reed Gallery, Cincinnati.
Robinson writes: "The show gave a wonderful introduction to a talented artist who had the good and bad fortune to be making work alongside some of the most important American painters in history. McGee was a painter of courageous ability and range... this show provided an art history lesson as we saw McGee working out the picture making problems that captivated the art world for some 40 years. For the art historian, painter or connoisseur, this show provided an opportunity to learn a new name through a powerful body of work."
Link to Post:
http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2013/04/painting-at-konrad-fischer/
Photo blog of the exhibition Painting at Konrad Fischer, Düsseldorf, featuring paintings by Ilse d'Hollander, Charlotte Posenenske, Jessica Warboys.
The press release notes that the show features d'Hollander's "concerted, harmonically balanced" paintings, Posenenske's "early Spachtelarbeiten (palette-knife works) and Rasterbilder (Grids)," and Warboys' "Sea-Paintings [in which] the artist leaves the painterly process to evironmental forces: a canvas prepared with pigments is left to the waves and influence of the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean."
