Al Held’s Visual Thresholds
The graphic monumentality of Al Held’s Alphabet Paintings comes from vigorously painted architectonic arrangements of letterforms painted on near-mural scale canvases.
Big Small Paintings
Marlene Steele reviews the exhibition Small is Big at Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, on view through April 5, 2013. The show features paintings by Catherine Kehoe, Tim Kennedy, Ken Kewley, Eve Mansdorf, and EM Saniga. Steele writes: "Any artist who undertakes the assignment of smaller works realizes immediately that every mark counts in an informational […]
Jim Lee: Interview
Ridley Howard interviews painter Jim Lee on the occasion of the exhibition Jim Lee: Please Be Clean When You Do It at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, New York, on view through March 31, 2013. Lee comments: "I need to work and not really know that I am making anything in particular. I guess that’s why I […]
Sarah Walker: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Sarah Walker. Walker comments: "I'm trying to allow everything in the painting that's ever been there to still exist visually and compellingly, presently, all at the same time. So, the past in my paintings is always present in some way, and all their movements, and […]
Stanley Whitney: Interview
David Reed interviews painter Stanley Whitney. Discussing color, Whitney comments: "I think artists have tried to explore color but not in a real worldly sense. When I say that I mean that if you go to India, there are worlds and worlds of color—10,000 shades of orange on the street. I really want the hand […]
Philip Guston @ McKee Gallery
James Kalm provides an up-close view of the exhibition Philip Guston: Centennial Exhibition at McKee Gallery, New York, on view through April 20th, 2013. As the gallery notes, the exhibition "is not a retrospective but a spontaneous celebration, attempting to expand our understanding of Guston with works which have not been widely exhibited, interspersed with […]
Abstract Silence
Andy Parkinson writes about two exhibitions at Annely Juda Fine Art, London: Line & Circle and new paintings by Edwina Leapman, on view through May 28, 2013. For Parkinson, both exhibitions engender silent contemplation. He describes how in a Max Bill painting (in the Line & Circle show), it is "impossible to determine which form is figure […]
John Elderfield on Helen Frankenthaler
Sam Cornish interviews John Elderfield about Helen Frankenthaler's work from the 1950s on the occasion of the exhibition Helen Frankenthaler: Painted on 21st Street – 1950 -1959, at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through April 13, 2013. Elderfield remarks: "Looking again at about thirty of Helen’s great 1950s works, I was especially struck by […]
Henry Taylor at Blum & Poe
Geoff Tuck reviews an exhibition of paintings by Henry Taylor at Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, on view through March 30, 2013. Tuck writes: "Henry Taylor reveals much about human nature in [The 'We' Hours, 2012], as he does in other paintings in the show. Taylor challenges us to move beyond a reliance on recognizable […]
Paint Things: Beyond The Stretcher
Robert Moeller reviews the exhibition Paint Things: Beyond The Stretcher at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA, on view through April 21, 2013. Moeller writes: "As [exhibition curator Dina] Deitsch so aptly states, 'The artists collected in this exhibition paint things. They literally paint things. And by doing so they welcome the notion […]
Ann Toebbe: Interview
Caroline Picard interviews painter Ann Toebbe about her work on the occasion of the exhibition Ann Toebbe: The Inheritance at Ebersmore, Chicago, on view through March 30, 2013. Toebbe remarks: "I have a knack for flattening space. It wasn’t considered a great asset in my early training in drawing and painting but I have cultivated […]
Jaune Quick-To-See-Smith
A Bascove reviews the exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Water and War at Accola Griefen, New York, on view through April 6, 2013. Bascove writes: "The figures in these paintings are unique to the land of Native Americans, transmitting the force of its endurance. There is a recitation of the struggles of indigenes peoples and the […]
Intimate Abstraction
Curator Nick Moore writes about the Intimate Abstraction, and exhibition of works by John Bunker, John Eaves, Patrick Jones, Frank Bowling, at The Searchers Contemporary, Bristol, on view through April 5, 2013. Moore notes: "The title of this exhibition derives partly from the size of the gallery and the choice of smaller works to include […]
Susan Bee: Interview
Bradley Rubenstein interviews painter Susan Bee about her life, her career, and her recent work. Asked about her newest work (which will be on view at Accola Griefen Gallery, New York from May 23 to June 29, 2013) Bee comments: "I have become very taken by the idea of theatricality and artifice. I am creating […]
Vera Iliatova: Interview
Nadiah Fellah talks to painter Vera Iliatova on the occasion of the exhibition Vera Iliatova: Days of Never at Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, on view through April 13, 2013. Iliatova comments: "Color is very important in my process and it is the first thing that I think about when I start each painting. For […]
Franz Kline: Painting the Speed of Sight
After visiting the recent exhibition Franz Kline: Coal and Steel at Baruch College's Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Tim Keane blogs about the origins of Franz Kline's classic black and white paintings and their unique ability embody a "kinetic" effect. Keane writes: "To the extent that they represent an object outside themselves, Kline’s black-and-whites grasp the kinetic […]
Peter Williams at Foxy Production
William Eckhardt Kohler reviews an exhibition of paintings by Peter Williams, on view at Foxy Production, New York, on view through March 23, 2013. Kohler writes: "The paintings of Peter Williams… are, in no particular order, hallucinogenic, acerbic, pained, beautiful, confessional, obsessive, critical, jarring, wild, weird and profoundly human. They are born from Williams' experiences […]
Amanda Church: In Conversation
Ed Winkleman talks to painter Amanda Church about her work. Asked about the particular combination of abstraction and representaion in her work, Church notes: "when I was spending a lot of time in LA I would sketch from things around me: buildings, swimming pools, trees and flowers, and sometimes people. These drawings eventually became paintings […]
Jennifer Wynne Reeves: Interview
Julia Schwartz interviews painter Jennifer Wynne Reeves about her work and practice. Reeves recalls: "In High School I became very interested in theatre and was the lead in several plays and musicals. Theatre brought me out. I loved it. I found a family there. We had a great program, a large auditorium as well as a […]