Link to Post:
http://www.artcritical.com/2013/05/14/hilary-harkness/
David Cohen reviews an exhibition of paintings by Hilary Harkness on view at the FLAG Art Foundation, New York, through May 18, 2013.
Cohen writes that Harkness' "newer work dispenses with the assured absurdist humor of her trademark strategy and puts her in uncharted water in which human foible takes over from inhuman gesture. Meanwhile, the display of her cutaways of battleships, mansions, and even an auction house with their stylized, weirdly good-humored depravity confirmed to this now hardened fan (note the skepticism in the earlier reviews reposted below) her unexpected capacity to build distinct mood within each work despite the seeming ubiquity of her aesthetic and moral world view."
Link to Post:
http://aeqai.com/main/2013/03/profile-tyler-wilkinson-manifest-gallery-artist-in-residence/
Jane Durrell profiles painting Tyler Wilkinson who is currently an Artist in Residence at Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati.
Commenting on figurative painting Wilkinson notes: "You can connect more strongly there... Since the first figures were drawn on the cave walls of Lascaux in southern France mankind has been obsessed with the human experience. Figurative paintings transcend reality, evoke innately human happenings. Figurative art is very powerful when well done." He continues: "I keep pushing myself to observe better, transcribe my feelings better, to paint with greater clarity. It’s always on my mind."
Link to Post:
http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/?p=8525
Katherine Bradford interviews painter Rick Briggs about his work.
Discussing the development of his work, Briggs comments that in the 80s he was "recording all the things I'd done to my place: replacing windows, spray painting, repairing the floor, etc. They were the kind of goofy, embarrassing drawings I never would have considered art but they absolutely do make sense as presaging the Painter Man series. I heard Guston once say that painting was an opportunity to embarrass yourself. I found that so shocking. I do think of my going from a reductive organic abstraction to a Pop narrative series based on a painter, albeit a house painter/artist, was my homage to Guston's challenge to 'embarrass yourself.' And you're right, Kathy, that figuration and abstraction were two very distinct activities back then. Remember when the abstract shapes in Elizabeth Murray's paintings first took on a figurative form? It seemed so radical then. Nowadays, it seems much easier to move freely between abstraction and representation. That's an aesthetic position I fully embrace."
Link to Post:
http://www.artcritical.com/2012/11/23/frank-moore/
Maddie Phinney reviews the exhibition Toxic Beauty: The Art of Frank Moore at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library, New York, on view through December 8, 2012.
Phinney writes: "A skilled painter trained in abstraction, Moore turned to representation in the early 1980s for its narrative capacity... The dreamlike quality of Moore’s work from this time has its roots in surrealism, in particular the American surrealist Paul Cadmus, evidenced both by the artist’s formal use of color and the iconography in his work dealing with gender and sexuality... Dream-like as they are, there is something distinctly literary about Moore’s paintings, each a tome with layers of information to be read and discovered."
Link to Post:
http://brooklynrail.org/2012/06/art/dana-schutz-with-jarrett-earnest
Jarrett Earnest interviews painter Dana Schutz about her work on the occasion of the exhibition Dana Schutz: Piano in the Rain at Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York, on view through June 16, 2012.
Schutz comments: "This idea that narrative is 'bad' might be a leftover from Modernism; a notion that narrative is 'kitschy,' too illustrative, or literary, but people might also not want to deal with other people's 'stuff.' Colors and flat planes, no matter how subjective they are, are perhaps easier to take than, say, a painting of someone's mom. However, I think a sense of place, character, and event can happen simultaneously with the kind of singular, big-impact read of an abstract painting. Alex Katz's paintings do this perfectly. To make a painting with people and things is not just 'subjective whatever-ness.' It's who we are and where we come from and can parallel the world, not just in a fictional or allegorical way, but also structurally. And paintings and images can feel so real! They can act as agents in the world."
Link to Post:
http://www.thoughtsthatcureradically.com/2012/05/faust-and-other-tales-paintings-of-jan.html
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Faust and Other Tales: The Paintings of Jan Müller at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through June 23, 2012.
De Jong writes: "Müller’s literary subject matter, while seemingly at odds with the high Modernist dictates of 1950s New York, hinted at a truth now more greatly apparent to a contemporary audience. Coming from a German Expressionist tradition that includes Emil Nolde and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Müller’s paintings nonetheless partakes of a New World sensibility. Looking back to the medieval world for subject matter, Müller managed to paint a metaphor for the New York school. Wrestling, parallel to St. Anthony, with his own private demons, his heart troubles were contracted attempting to escape the Nazis, Müller attempted to turn his studio into a permanent walpurgisnacht, a place of pictorial sorcery."
Link to Post:
http://www.furiousdreams.com/blog/?p=11877
Victoria Webb visits the studio of painter Alan Loehle.
Webb writes that "Leohle works with emotional content. He tackles the big issues; lust, death, life. Few of his works are outright humorous, but those that are rock with color and conflict; the human condition as seen by an 'other' creator; the artist. His objective to merge disparate elements and lose representational space, while referencing both ancient and modern mythology, results in fascinating juxtapositions."
Link to Post:
http://mnaves.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/storytelling-in-japanese-art-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Storytelling in Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view through May 6, 2012.
Naves writes that "The advent and subsequent triumph of modernism did much to diminish the role of narrative in the visual arts, insisting, as it did, that the exigencies of craft should take precedence over anything smacking of literature." He continues, noting that "modernism is an historical blip... Narratives have dominated world art... Thoughts about narrative - about temporal flow, cultural myths and the human imagination’s range, influence and probity - came to mind while viewing Storytelling in Japanese Art."
Link to Post:
http://paintingowu.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/hanneline-rogeberg-2/
Frank Hobbs blogs images by painter Hanneline Rogeberg.
Be sure to follow the link at the bottom of Hobbs' post to watch a video of Rogeberg's 2007 lecture at Boston University where she speaks about Edvard Munch and about her own work and practice.
Link to Post:
http://www.beardandbrush.com/2011/06/interview-alex-cohen-framing-first.html
Matthew Farina interviews painter Alex Cohen about his work. Cohen discusses working in a rural setting, nostalgia in painting, framing (Cohen makes his own), and his interest in first person narrative paintings: "The first person point of view gives the sense of the painting as an experience rather than captured scene."
