Mary Heilmann: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Mary Heilmann at her Bridgehampton, New York studio. Samet writes that Heilmann "made the radical move to become a painter (right when painting was declared dead), but her work is always object-like and idea-based. Her punk aesthetic is manifested in wild colors, fake drips, and slightly off-kilter geometries. She joins shaped […]
Trent Miller: Interview
Trent Miller’s presents his highly-complex and personal vision through paintings and drawings in which the observed world and that of the imagination harmoniously coexist.
Sharon Butler: When Paintings Come Apart
Thomas Micchelli interviews painter Sharon Butler about the work in her exhibition Precisionist Casual at Pocket Utopia, New York, on view through February 17, 2013. Butler comments: "To be honest, I’m a little apprehensive that some viewers will have… a sense of condescension or even indignation towards the seeming lack of skill and effort involved. […]
Jay Feo: Last Paintings
Rob Marks writes about the last works of painter Jay DeFeo on view in a retrospective of DeFeo's work at the San Francisco Museum of Moden Art through February 3, 2013. Marks notes: "If you back your way into the Jay DeFeo exhibition… you’ll discover, as I did, a group of five oil paintings in […]
Alex Olson: Remarks on Surface
Painter Painter will be on view at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis from February 2 – October 27, 2013. Exhibition co-curator Eric Crosby interviews painter Alex Olson whose work will be included in the show. Olson comments: "I do think that painting is a language, as all marks are referential, but that’s just one element […]
Paul Behnke: Interview
Phillip J. Mellen conducts an in-depth interview with painter Paul Behnke about his work. Behnke talks several times in the interview about his spontaneous, materials-based approach. "To me," he comments, "especially at the beginning, the work is all about the materials, I just start. I don't have any preconceived colors I'm going to use… that all […]
Cellblock @ Andrea Rosen Gallery
Paul Corio reviews the exhibitions Cellblock I and Cellblock II: An Essay In Exhibition Form at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York. The two-part show, curated by Robert Hobbs, is on view through February 2, 2013. Together the shows feature a large group of artists including: Alice Aycock, Peter Halley, Robert Motherwell, Sterling Ruby, Robert Smithson, […]
Patrick Michael Fitzgerald: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Patrick Michael Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald remarks: "My process has become very organic; reworking things, interweaving things… paintings can have their origins in the history of my own work or the wider history of art. Some small aspect or detail can be enough. A memory of something or even certain sensations. I also […]
Francis Bacon: Five Decades
Exhibition curator Anthony Bond writes about Francis Bacon: Five Decades at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, on view through February 24, 2013. Bond writes: "The premise of the exhibition has been to foreground the facture of the paintings rather than presenting the narratives that a thematic installation privileges. Bacon himself hated the […]
Daniel Buren: In Situ
Andrew Russeth previews a two gallery exhibition of work by Daniel Buren: Electricity … Fabric … Paint … Paper … Vinyl: Works in Situ & Situated Works From 1968-2013 at Bortolami and Petzel Gallery, New York, both on view January 10 – February 16, 2013. Russeth writes that both shows include "installations made with striped […]
‘Painting’ @ The Box
Geoff Tuck reviews the exhibition Painting at The Box, Los Angeles, on view through January 26, 2013. Tuck writes: "The artworks – which include painting and not painting, video and sculpture, object and action – are personal and political and beautiful and objectionable and charming and difficult. Each is a lesson in how to make […]
Matisse: Inventing Abstraction
Tyler Green laments the abscence of paintings by Henri Matisse in the exhibition Inventing Abstraction: 1910 – 1925 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view from December 23, 2012–April 15, 2013. Green writes: "Much in the coming abstraction — in particular its bright, shining hues — is descended from Matisse… Leaving the […]
Thornton Willis: Studio Visit
James Panero visits the studio of painter Thornton Willis. Panero writes that Willis' "abstractions are a blend of geometry and intuition. For his latest series, he pares down his forms and used strong color contrasts to energize the tension between figure and ground… Thornton is one of Soho's artist pioneers. He and his family moved […]
Lawren Harris: Holding Energy
Philip Koch muses on the paintings of Lawren Harris. Koch writes: "I think most of us often feel life is speeding by us so fast that we can't really take it in. It can seem everything is stuck on a 'Fast Forward' setting. A well painted image of the world like what Harris often achieved […]
Chuck Webster: In Conversation
Samuel Jablon talks with painter Chuck Webster about his work and process. Webster remarks: "I think the idea and the picture need to be one total experience for the viewer. Pictures have to be an embodiment of the idea while still remaining clear. Ideas for me come from the activity, from the evidence of putting […]
Mark Lammert: Interview
Bernhard Gaul interviews painter and stage designer Mark Lammert. Asked about the relationship between his painting and designing for theatre Lammert replies: "I believe there might be overlaps in terms of creating a lot out of just a few elements. Let’s say: the old problem of expressing a lot with just a few colours, or […]
Eithne Jordan: Silence, Exile & Cunning
Robert Armstrong posts about the paintings of Eithne Jordan. Jordan's work was recently on view at Rubicon Gallery, Dublin and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Armstrong writes that "has lived for long periods in Berlin and the South of France, but she spent most of last year painting in her native Dublin. The body of work, which […]
Richard Smith: Kite Paintings
Simon Callery and Sam Cornish discuss Richard Smith: Kite Paintings on view at Gimpel Fils, London through January 12, 2013. Cornish begins: "despite how much [Smith's works] play with the physical conventions of painting, in terms of the stretcher etc., they remained something which to me was like an image… they read instantaneously, they read […]
Kathryn Myers: India Studies
Sharon Butler blogs excerpts from an interview with painter Kathryn Myers about her discovery of Indian visual traditions that have influence her series of observational paintings of Indian daily life. Myers recalls: "I went to India for the first time in 1999 on a sabbatical leave… I did not know much about India at all, […]
Bernard Chaet’s Far Horizon
Greg Cook reviews the recent exhibition Bernard Chaet: A Life in Art at Alpha Gallery, Boston. Cook writes that Chaet's "impasto buildup of paint recalls the cement-like clouds of Marsden Hartley’s raw, roughhewn late style, which he pioneered during summers at Gloucester in the 1930s. Chaet also seems to be channeling the vivid meaty textures […]