Two Coats of Paint
Eleanor Ray: The power of the small
Two Coats of Paint
Michael Brennan reviews paintings by Eleanor Ray at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York. “[Ray’s] paintings are small, mostly under ten inches in their longest dimension. They defiantly reside in keyhole territory, but she has a keen sense of scale. The art world routinely misuses this term to signify anything large, when in fact it concerns […]
Joan Thorne: An Odyssey of Color
Two Coats of Paint
Vittorio Colaizzi reviews Joan Thorne, An Odyssey of Color at David Richard Gallery, New York. In Orango, a row of concentric green arcs – complicated by her signature trembling – frames a riotous zone of magenta, cobalt, and powdery violet. Only after some deciphering does the sequence and nature of layers become apparent, as the […]
James Brooks reconsidered
Two Coats of Paint
Laurie Fendrich reviews James Brooks: A Painting is a Real Thing, curated by Dr. Klaus Ottmann on view at The Parrish Art Museum from August 6–October 15, 2023. Fendrich writes: “On the rare occasions I’ve encountered Brooks’s paintings, I’ve paid them scant attention. Like many, I have walked on by, presumptively ranking him well below […]
Angel Otero: Painting and the Social Landscape
Two Coats of Paint
Eileen Jeng Lynch reviews Angel Otero: Elegies, curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The show pairs Otero’s work with three works by Robert Motherwell. Lynch writes: “The intention was not to be a one-to-one comparison but to draw parallels between the works of Otero and Motherwell, such as their emotive effect. … […]
Jennifer Coates: Lullabies for Difficult Times
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Jennifer Coates,: Correspondences at Freight + Volume, New York, on view through April 15, 2018. Butler writes: “At first glance, the paintings convey a sense of joy, in the same way that Paul Klee’s idiosyncratic visual language does. Yet in some, like Bull Spirit(2018) and Small Rabbit Spirit(2018), globs of slathered paint, […]
Byron Kim’s Painting Ritual
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Byron Kim: Sunday Paintings at James Cohan Gallery, New York, on view through February 17, 2018. Butler writes: “What makes [Kim’s paintings] unremarkable are their size and the undramatic skies they depict – not the complex, sublime sky paintings made by, say, great Dutch painters like Aelbert Cuyp and Jacob van Ruisdael. Instead, they are […]
Lauren Luloff: Drawing (with bleach) from life
Two Coats of Paint
Eileen Jeng Lynch reviews the recent exhibition Lauren Luloff: The Evergreens at Ceysson & Bénétière, New York. Lynch writes: “The title of the show, The Evergreens, derives its name from the eponymous nineteenth-century cemetery in the artist’s Brooklyn neighborhood. Luloff used bleach to paint flora – including sunflowers, hollyhocks, hydrangeas, and blue spruces – in […]
Tom McGlynn: Liberating Geometric Shapes
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Tom McGlynn: Station / Decal / Survey at Rick Wester Fine Arts, New York, on view through December 23, 2017. Butler writes: “The shapes [in McGlynn’s paintings] aren’t symbolic, and they don’t conjure a discrete narrative about internal relationships. But they do provide some evidence of this artist’s specific intention and process. His very […]
Emily Berger: Interview
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler interviews painter Emily Berger on the occasion of the recent exhibition Emily Berger: Rhythm and Light at Walter Wickiser, New York, and Emily Berger: New Paintings at Norte Maar, Brooklyn (through November 19). Berger comments: “From my earliest complete and semi-presentable paintings I’ve been a grid painter. I like the structure and the […]
Erika Ranee: Ideas and Influences
Two Coats of Paint
Erika Ranee shares a wide variety of material that inspires her abstract paintings.
Carolyn Case: The Mythic and The Mundane
Two Coats of Paint
William Eckhardt Kohler reviews Carolyn Case: Homemade Tatoo at Asya Geisberg, Chelsea, New York, on view through October 14, 2017. Kohler writes: “Case digs in with persistence, perseverance, and painterly inventiveness. Seeing this, one might think that paint and painting are the subject of these paintings, but that is only true in part. The paintings […]
Leslie Wayne: Beyond Painterly
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler and Jonathan Stevenson review Leslie Wayne: Free Experience at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, on view through October 21st, 2017. They write: “… in his lecture series at Harvard in the 1980s, Frank Stella came up with the notion of ‘working space’ – that is, activating the space in front of the canvas by building out from […]
Andrea Belag: Making Changes
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Andrea Belag: Ghost Writer at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through October 15, 2017. Butler writes: “In [Belag’s] older work, the deep color triggered an inchoate emotional response, but now simple shapes and lines, truncated brushstrokes rendered in lively color, float on the picture plane. Many of the new paintings leave large […]
Unlimited: Painting and Political Upheaval
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews Unlimited: Painting in France in the 1960s & 1970s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Butler writes: “The incisive, elegantly installed exhibition in Philadelphia, comprising work made from 1964 through 1974, highlights some of the ideas that were percolating before and after the 1968 riots. Artists began to consider how they were using […]
Ginny Casey in Philadelphia
Two Coats of Paint
Becky Huff Hunter writes about the paintings of Ginny Casey, on view in the exhibition Ginny Casey & Jessi Reaves at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, through August 6, 2017. Hunter writes: “This impossible composition [of Moody Blue Studio, 2017], as well as those of the other ten paintings, is reminiscent of art school still […]
Quicktime: Fast, Casual Painting
Two Coats of Paint
Becky Huff Hunter reviews Quicktime at the Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia, on view through April 22, 2017. The show features works by Marina Adams, Amy Feldman, Ann Craven, Melissa Meyer, and Patricia Treib. Hunter writes: “In the show, twelve recent, mostly large-scale, conventionally stretched works share fast-looking brush strokes; few visible layers […]
A New Subjectivity: Figurative Painting after 2000
Two Coats of Paint
Sharon Butler reviews A New Subjectivity: Figurative Painting after 2000, curated by Jason Stopa, at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (through April 12). The show features works by Katherine Bradford, Katherine Bernhardt, Gina Beavers, Jackie Gendel, Liz Markus, and Rose Wylie. Butler writes that curator Jason Stopa “makes a strong case that contemporary painters, particularly […]
Alex O’Neal: Hiding Places in a Dream
Two Coats of Paint
Katarina Wong reviews the recent exhibition Alex O’Neal: Hiding Places in a Dream at Linda Warren Projects, Chicago. Wong writes: “O’Neal tends to pack all of the action in the foreground of his paintings, so much so that it feels as if the air has been purposefully sucked out of the space. People and objects, painted […]
Douglas Witmer’s Simplicity
Two Coats of Paint
Becky Huff Hunter reviews Douglas Witmer: Dubh Glas at Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Philadelphia, on view through March 12, 2017. Hunter writes: “Each work in Witmer’s austere Winterbrook (2015‒17) series of six small panels brings out a different relational quality between paint and canvas: black wash opens up the flawed pores of the canvas grain; dense, dry paint […]
David Humphrey @ Fredericks & Freiser
Two Coats of Paint
Jonathan Stevenson reviews David Humphrey: I’m Glad We Had This Conversation at Fredericks & Freiser, New York, on view through February 25, 2017. Stevenson begins: “David Humphrey’s visual and intellectual virtuosity – augmented by the smooth surface finality of meticulously applied acrylic paint – is such that he seems to accomplish everything he wants in […]