Paul Edwards: Obsessive Expressionist
Paul Behnke blogs about the paintings of Paul Edwards. Behnke writes: "Edwards' work is characterized by a unique, expressive depiction of the figure and an eye for detail, all locked within compositions that are violent and lyrical all at once. Generally, he employs a limited color palette that establishes mood while his obsessive drawing and […]
Ellen Altfest: Interview
Ridley Howard interviews painter Ellen Altfest about her work. I think I learned to be an artist as a still life painter and then applied that language to the figure. Maybe the body is more understandable when it is broken down into knowable pieces. I also like that the parts of the body become their […]
Julie Heffernan: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Julie Heffernan about her work and career. Heffernan comments: "I am looking for forms that can function both symbolically and with their own personality. I remember Peter Schjeldahl writing about the Victorian Fairy Painting exhibition at the Frick in 1999. He said the show signified to him the end of modernism, […]
Farrell Brickhouse: In Conversation
Julia Schwartz interviews painter Farrell Brickhouse about his work and career. Brickhouse comments: "For me in painting there needs to be an epiphany, a trace of how the imagery conveyed thru paint was discovered and experienced by the artist. Not a graphic notation of the language of experience but the mystery of it. Art is […]
L.S. Lowry: Rage Against the Machine
Jeanette Winterson writes about the paintings of LS Lowry on the occasion of the exhibition Lowry and the Painting of Modern Life at Tate Britain, London, on view from June 26 – October 20, 2013. Winterson notes that "Dickens and Mrs Gaskell had written about Manchester. DH Lawrence found a language for the rough beauty […]
Meditations @ Pluspace
Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition Meditations at Pluspace, Coventry, on view through July 7, 2013. The show features paintings by Karl Bielik, Lisa Denyer, Rachael Macarthur, Matthew Macaulay, Sarah McNulty, Phoebe Mitchell, Joe Packer, and Melanie Russell. Parkinson writes that Bielik's "Spy looks like the support could once have been the lid of an old […]
Susan Weil: Time’s Place
Jason Andrew blogs about the paintings of Susan Weil on the occasion of the exhibition Susan Weil: Time's Place at Sundaram Tagore Gallery, New York, on view through June 15, 2013. Andrew writes: "In her paintings [Weil] combines unexpected materials and mediums — including collage, blueprint, and paint on recycled canvas, acrylic, and wood — […]
Joyce Pensato: Interview
Tyler Green talks to painter Joyce Pensato on the occasion of the exhibition Joyce Pensato: I Killed Kenny on view at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through August 17, 2013. Pensato discusses her working process and looking at Franz Kline and de Kooning as well as her interest in cartoon characters as subject matter. […]
Eve Aschheim: Interview
John Seed interviews painter Eve Aschheim on the occasion of the exhibition Eve Aschheim / Ying Li: Recent Paintings is on view at the New York Studio School on view through July 20, 2013. Aschheim comments: "Much art is concerned with static and defined forms. I am interested in a more active situation, in which […]
Varda Caivano at the Venice Biennale
Image blog of installation views of paintings by Varda Caivano in The Encyclopedic Palace, Central Pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, curated by Massimiliano Gioni, on view through November 24, 2013. The press release notes that "the painted palimpsests of Varda Caivano describe an inner world where natural forms overlap with imaginary presences." […]
John Lees: Exhuming the Numinous
Thaddeus Radell reviews an exhibition of paintings by John Lees at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through June 22, 2013. Radell writes that in Lees' paintings, "the broad orchestration of intoxicatingly layered texture, ineffable nuances of color and spectral imagery combines to create an overwhelming presence of physical Beauty. Such Beauty, so impeccably and consistently […]
The Pleasure of Seeing
Lane Cooper reviews the exhibition Hold the Wall: A Painting Exhibition, curated by Dan Tranberg, at Cleveland State University, on view through June 22, 2013. The show features paintings by Timothy Callaghan, Matthew Childers, Seth Chwas, Harris Johnson, Julie Langsam, Adam Markanovik, Mike Meier, Erik Neff, Dana Oldfather, George Schroeder, C. M. Sikon, Sarah Sutton, […]
Corot’s Modernity
Reflections on the inherent modernity of Corot's plein-art studies. "A landscape can be a reliable barometer of where painting is headed at the time of its making. That has partly to do with its absence of human traces. The lack of bridges, roads and other such structures that are only occasionally included by Corot, create […]
System Painting Construction Archive
Andy Parkinson reviews the exhibition System Painting Construction Archive at Lion and Lamb Gallery, London, on view through June 15, 2013. The show, Parkinson writes, features "works by Andrew Bick, Stuart Elliot, Robert Holyhead, Clare Kenny, Maria Lalic, Karim Noureldin, David Rhodes, Cullinan Richards, Brandon Taylor, exhibited alongside a 'museum' of printed matter related to […]
Mary Cassatt: Transient States
Barry Schwabsky reviews the exhibition Daring Methods: The Prints of Mary Cassatt at the New York Public Library, on view through June 23, 2013. Schwabsky draws an interesting comparison between the approaches of Cassatt and De Kooning, writing: "As odd as it might be to compare the intimist Cassatt to an Abstract Expressionist like de […]
Hansjoerg Dobliar: Hysterie und Abstraktion
Eric Sutphin reviews the exhibition Hansjoerg Dobliar: Hysterie und Abstraktion at Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York, on view through June 15, 2013. Sutphin writes: "Sometimes the brush is cast aside and Dobliar draws straight onto the surface with the paint tube. Raised circles of pigment are frequent evidence that the transference of paint to surface, at […]
Susan Roth: Painting Collage, Collaging Painting
Sam Cornish blogs about the work of painter Susan Roth. Cornish writes: "I like how dramatic the paintings are as images, and how this drama pushes and pulls (surges may be a better word) in two directions: the ruffs and ripples of canvas and colour work upwards towards the containing outline, whilst the outline imposes […]
The Portrait Tradition
Sharon Butler blogs about the work of five artists, Beverly McIver, Ray DiCapua, Tim Doud, Anne Harris, and Bo Bartlett, who are finalists in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, on display the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, through February 13, 2014. Butler's post includes thoughts on portraiture from each artist. Doud comments that "If […]
Bay Area Painters @ Thomas Williams
John Seed interviews Thomas Williams on the occasion of the exhibition The Bay Area School Painters at Thomas Williams Fine Art, London, on view through June 22, 2013. The show includes works by Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, David Park, Ernest Briggs, John Grillo, Joan Brown, Frank Lobdell, Nathan Oliveira, Manuel Neri, and Paul Wonner. Williams remarks: […]
Guy Corriero: Interview
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews artist Guy Corriero about his work. Corriero, who makes both painting and sculpture, says of his paintings: "I have been building my paintings the same way for a long time; hand-made, irregular rectangles cut from 1/8" poplar sheets with a frame-type edge glued on, then layering them with many coats traditional gesso […]