Degas, Renoir & Poetic Pastels
Emil Robinson reviews the exhibition Degas, Renoir, and Poetic Pastels at the Cincinnati Art Museum, on view through January 19, 2014. Robinson writes that "the real treasures in the show come from the hand of Degas. Here we see five fine works, all depicting the ballet. These pieces appear both ancient and startlingly modern: ancient […]
Benjamin Degen: Shadow, Ripple & Reflection
Michael Bilsborough reviews the exhibition Benjamin Degen: Shadow, Ripple and Reflection at Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, on view through December 7, 2013. Bilsborough writes that "Degen gives us new paintings of figures that look life-size, built from impasto techniques that seem to weave fibers of pure color, while using hue and space to deliver […]
Peter Young: Linear Weave (Vertical Fold)
John Yau reviews the exhibition Peter Young: Linear Weave (Vertical Fold) Paintings: 1980–1983 at Algus Greenspon, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. Yau writes that "the 'Linear Weave (Vertical Fold)' paintings are not in the least pictorial. They are dense, non-hierarchical, informational fields made up of a simple abstract language, whose geometric combinations […]
Lucy McKenzie: Manners
Isla Leaver-Yap writes about the work of Lucy McKenzie, whose paintings are currently on view in the exhibition Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists at Tate Britain, London (through February 9, 2014). "Largely comprising portraits, still lifes, scaled architectural elevations and installations," Leaver-Yap notes, "McKenzie’s body of work could be formally characterised as representational painting: the […]
Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War
Marina Vaizey reviews the exhibition Stanley Spencer: Heaven in a Hell of War at Somerset House, London, on view through January 26, 2014. Vaizey writes that the venue "provides an unrepeatable experience, as we are able to see the newly restored paintings close up in bright light, appreciate the dizzying changes of scale, and the […]
Alan Feltus: The Elusiveness of Meaning
Painter Alan Feltus discusses the elusive nature of meaning in his painting 2004 Summer. Feltus comments: "I tend to focus on the underlying structure, or composition, of my paintings and how I work with that intuitively, not basing the structure on any traditional systems. Composition has always been very important to me. What one can […]
Turner & the Sea
Jackie Wullschlager reviews the exhibition Turner and the Sea on view at the National Maritime Museum, London (through April 21 2014) and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (May 31 – September 1, 2014). Wullschlager writes: "Vortex-like compositions, suggesting history’s repetitions as doomed cycles of catastrophe and of man sucked to his fate recur in […]
Eugene J. Martin @ ASC Projects
John Haber reviews a recent exhibition of works by Eugene J. Martin at ASC Projects – Gallery 304, New York. Haber writes: "If this is portraiture, its real subject is painting. And painting here begins and ends with abstraction. It includes the enigmatic touches of color in place of a face, the spare horizontals of […]
Marguerite Horner: Interview
Claudia Böse interviews painter Marguerite Horner about her work and career. Horner comments: "The hardest thing is getting the image in your head, this is why once its worked out small, once I’ve decided its worked on that scale, after that it is just a process, an interesting process, because you are just interested in […]
Painting’s Temporary Equilibrium
Eleanor Ray examines the "temporary equilibrium" achieved in great painting. In particular Ray discusses this quality in the work of Philip Guston, Stanley Lewis, and Giorgio Morandi. Morandi, she writes, "brings painting to the edge of representation, painting objects so simple that they are nearly reduced to shapes and lines, but never are. He locates […]
Willem de Kooning: 1983-1985
Paul Corio reviews an exhibition of late paintings by Willem de Kooning at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through December 21, 2013. Corio asserts: "De Kooning’s late work seems to me to be a particularly fertile example for the contemporary abstract painter, not stylistically per se, but in terms of permissiveness. It is largely […]
Peter Selz on Yisrael K. Feldsott, Politics & Art
Mostafa Heddaya talks with Peter Selz about art, politics, and the paintings of Yisrael K. Feldsott on view in the exhibition Cries, Chants, Shouts and Whispers: Songs of the Forgotten at Studio Vendome, New York, through November 23, 2013. Selz comments that he appreciates Feldsott's "combination of rawness. And the subjects he chooses are raw and […]
Painting Now @ Tate Britain
Emily Spicer reviews the exhibition Painting Now: Five Contemporary Artists at Tate Britain, London, on view through February 9, 2014. The show features works by Tomma Abts, Gillian Carnegie, Simon Ling, Lucy McKenzie, and Catherine Story. Spicer writes that the show "brings together five contemporary artists whose paintings occupy a variety of conceptual concerns, while […]
Painting Impossible @ Life on Mars
Etty Yaniv reviews the exhibition Painting Impossible at Life on Mars, Bushwick. The show features works by Todd Bienvenu, Katherine Bradford, Jim Herbert, Arnold Mesches, and Karen Schwartz. Yaniv writes “Despite the wide diversity in their work, all five artists integrate figure and gesture with abstraction to generate a charged narrative, draw on the way […]
Lisa Sigal: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Lisa Sigal. Sigal discusses her painting practice in which plein-air painting informs her studio works. She comments: "My background is painting but in some ways I really feel like I want to respond to place… I started to assign myself places to go and look […]
Lesley Vance @ David Kordansky Gallery
Sharon Mizota reviews the exhibition of new work by Lesley Vance at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, on view through January 4, 2014. Mizota writes that Vance "makes the kind of small, abstract paintings that would be easy to dismiss if they weren’t so solid, so alive… The paintings continually flirt with recognition, suggesting a […]
Alex Katz: Time Stands Still
David Rhodes reviews the recent exhibition Alex Katz: Small Paintings 1987-2013 at Peter Blum Gallery, New York. Rhodes writes that "because the paintings are both very focused and fragmentary, they can be seen as both complete in themselves – time stilled – and as a sequence of moments, hours or years apart. That portraits appear at […]
Sarah McEneaney: Trestletown
Daniel Gerwin reviews the exhibition Sarah McEneaney: Trestletown at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through November 23, 2013. Gerwin writes: "Modernism made much of the separation between life and art, but I’ve never bought that line. One of today’s hot trends is political or social activism as art, which is variously identified as social practice, […]
Painting Too
Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition Painting Too at Harrington Mill Studios, on view through November 24, 2013. The show features works by Terry Greene, Vincent Hawkins, Matthew Macauley, Lisa Denyer, Rachel Pinks, Rachael Macarthur, and Stephen MacInnis. Parkinson writes that Painting Too "forms part-two of a duo of shows about abstract painting… If part-one, [The Discipline […]
Miquel Barceló: Interview
Colm Tóibín interviews painter Miquel Barceló his recent work, on view at Acquavella Galleries, New York, through November 22, 2013. Talking about his technique of painting with bleach, Barceló comments: "you don’t see what happens until the day after. You believe it happens but you don’t know… With bleach, it’s always the eyes and hands […]