Honoré Daumier: Visions of Paris
Julian Bell reviews the exhibition Daumier (1808-1879): Visions of Paris at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, on view through January 26, 2014. Bell writes that Daumier "tends to approach oils as if a matrix of free brushwork could deliver his ideas to him as lucidly as lines drawn with crayon or pen: but the paint […]
Jake Berthot @ Betty Cuningham Gallery
John Yau reviews an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Jake Berthot at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through November 30, 2013. Yau writes: "The paintings are simple observations: a tree; a landscape stretching into the distance; a skull sitting on a table, facing you, like a friend who is trying to tell […]
Fred Pollock: Studio Visit
Painter Fred Pollock hosts a group studio visit with Hilde Skilton, Mark Skilton, Anne Smart, Anthony Smart, Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann, Robin Greenwood, Sarah Greenwood, John Bunker, Nick Moore, Ashley West, Fred Crayk, Saul Greenberg, Emyr Williams, John Pluthero, Patrick Jones, and Sam Cornish. Discussing his work, Pollock comments: "I’m aware of the space in the painting, […]
Ashley Garrett: Interview
Phillip J. Mellen interviews painter Ashley Garrett about her work. Garrett comments: "What's important in my work is having a sense of being grounded in the world, taking in the outside world… paying attention to light, sound, smell, touch, feeling, all the tactile stuff – [to be] bristling with attention." She continues, noting that this […]
Jules de Balincourt: Studio Visit
Maria Calandra visits the studio of painter Jules de Balincourt. Balincourt's exhibition Itinerant Ones is on view at Victoria Miro Gallery, London through December 20, 2013. Calandra writes: "A diverse group of characters fade in and out of De Balincourt's paintings, which gives their personas a mystery akin to the narratives they are partaking in. […]
Wayne Thiebaud: Memory Mountains
John Seed interviews painter Wayne Thiebaud on the occasion of the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud: Memory Mountains at Paul Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, on view through December 21, 2013. Discussing the theme of the show, Thiebaud comments; "There was the sort of opposite aspect of venerating them and having them be spiritual sources. That extreme — […]
Ad Reinhardt’s Semi-Secret History
Robin Cembalest reviews an exhibition of works by Ad Reinhardt at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, on view through December 18, 2013. Cembalest writes that the "show explores links between Ad Reinhardt's identity as abstract painter and as cartoonist, satirist, crusader, explicator, and slide-show maker… At a time when various New York abstractionists were starting […]
Lennart Anderson: Interview
A’Dora Phillips and Brian Schumacher interview painter Lennart Anderson on the occasion of the exhibition Lennart Anderson: Paintings & Drawings at Leigh Morse Fine Arts, New York, on view through November 23, 2013. Speaking about perceptual painting Anderson comments: "I’m not dependent on what I’m carrying around in my head. If you have something to […]
Abelow 101
Keith J. Varadi writes about the work of Joshua Abelow which was recently on view at James Fuentes, New York. Varadi writes: "It is an endeavor to engage with the factory-like output that is Joshua Abelow’s work… If one were to step inside his studio, he or she would see stacks of packaged paintings and […]
Henri Matisse on Color
Miranda Sklaroff blogs excerpts on color from the new book Chatting with Henri Matisse: The Lost 1941 Interview (published by the Getty Research Institute, ed. by Serge Guilbaut) which makes public for the first time an interview with Henri Matisse conducted by Pierre Courthion. In one of the excerpts Matisse comments: "I finally came to […]
Claire Chesnier: Constructing Liquid Veils
Matthew Hassell interviews artist Claire Chesnier about her work. Chesnier comments: "My compositions proceed from the avoidance of the edges of the paper facing me. The shapes I create result from a physical relation with the support: its dimensions are akin to mine, it embraces me. Thus, the frames that contain the fluid movement of […]
Kyle Staver: Interview
Maria Doubrovskaia talks to painter Kyle Staver about her paintings which are on view at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York through November 23, 2013. Staver comments: "Transformation…Painting is transformation. It’s like alchemy of something. I remember being an art student and making light for the first time. Feeling like light was actually coming from […]
Painting 101 @ Sargent’s Daughters
James Kalm visits the exhibition Painting 101 at Sargent's Daughters, New York, on view through December 7, 2013. The show features paintings by Denis Hollingsworth, Francesca DiMattio, Jonathan Lasker, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, and Sandi Slone. The gallery press release notes that "a force within painting has a hold over the viewer as well as the […]
Farrell Brickhouse: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Farrell Brickhouse. Brickhouse speaks at length about the motivations behind his work. He comments: "I realized really I'm a story teller, I like telling stories… I look at an artist like Goya, and you look at the range of things he was able to speak […]
Elizabeth O’Reilly: Presence, Absence & Light
Peter Malone reviews an exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth O’Reilly at George Billis Gallery, New York, on view through November 16, 2013. Malone writes that "O’Reilly is once again applying unbound oil color to ground, guiding her brush with just the right viscosity to imply in a single stroke the effects of texture, shadow and […]
Hearne Pardee & Gina Werfel
John Seed talks to painters Hearne Pardee and Gina Werfel on the occasion of their two-person exhibition [ he said, she said…] at Adler and Co., San Francisco, on view through December 4, 2013. Pardee and Werfel are married and both teach at UC Davis. Werfel remarks: "We have shown together in the past, however, […]
Dannielle Tegeder @ Gregory Lind
David M. Roth reviews the exhibition Dannielle Tegeder: The Library of Abstract Sound at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco, on view through November 30, 2013. Roth writes that Tegeder's "compositions, while precisely balanced, have a provisional feel, as if the elements were interchangeable, modular. But, as with everything Tegeder does, the [Library of Abstract Sound] […]
Mark Bradford @ White Cube
Celia White reviews the exhibition Mark Bradford: Through Darkest America by Truck and Tank at White Cube, London, on view through January 12, 2014. White writes that Bradford employs "a creative practice that, while not necessarily innovative, he has made his own, both technically and conceptually. Collage’s history is short but intense, and Bradford’s use […]
Red Grooms: Larger than Life
Debra Cash reviews Red Grooms: Larger than Life at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, on view through March 9, 2014. Cash writes that "The show circling around Grooms’ mural-sized tributes to visual artists of the past is a hoot, shoehorning crowded genre scenes (think Brueghel or Bosch) into the region of knowing winks. […]
Vince Contarino & Zachary Royer Scholz
Matthew Marchand reviews the recent exhibition of Vince Contarino and Zachary Royer Scholz at c2c project space, San Francisco. Marchand writes that Contarino "takes the sublime monumentality of expressionist abstraction, sweeping away the maudlin sentimentality to expose a more intimate and personal sublimity… the careful curation of the mark making removes the marks from the […]