John Walker @ Tim Olsen Gallery
Nicholas Forrest reviews an exhibition of paintings by John Walker at Tim Olsen Gallery, Sydney, Australia, on view through December 16, 2012. Forrest writes: "In [Walker's] latest series of large-scale paintings, a rogue element emerges that dominates the canvas yet awakens the landscape scene to which it is tied… totemic forms – provocatively shrouded in yellows, […]
The Four Corners of Painting
Finding that "painting has now essentially marked off its overall set of boundaries and is engaged in the task of elaboration and infilling," Richard Kalina offers four possible categories to begin the critical dialogue anew. "The point," he writes, "is to recognize the situation on the ground, to see things for what they are, and importantly […]
Painting at the Art Fairs
In a two part post, Tatiana Berg photo blogs paintings on display at the Miami Art Fairs: Art Basel in post one and NADA and Untitled in post two. Berg notes that the photos are her "personal highlights and completely subjective, biased favorites. As much as there is to complain about art fairs they remain […]
Mary Addison Hackett: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews painter Mary Addison Hackett about her work and process. Hackett notes: "It can begin with a memory, an object, an observation, something I read. Anything, really. When I was working abstractly, I would mentally store all of this information and approach a canvas using process as my starting point. Now that I'm […]
Keltie Ferris @ Mitchell-Innes & Nash
Steven Alexander blogs about an exhibition of new paintings by Keltie Ferris at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York, on view through January 12, 2013. Alexander writes: "Keltie's paintings are built with many layers of intersecting translucent and opaque matrixes in various media, including spray (oil) paint, acrylic and oil pastel, forming fabulous amalgams of color, […]
Mannerism at the Morgan
Charles Kessler visits two exhibitions at the Morgan Library: Fantasy and Invention: Rosso Fiorentino and Sixteenth-Century Florentine Drawing (through February 3) and Dürer to de Kooning: 100 Master Drawings from Munich (through January 6). Of Rosso's Holy Family with the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1520), Kessler writes: "Rosso makes no attempt to create […]
JJ Manford: Studio Visit
Maria Calandra visits the studio of painter JJ Manford. Calandra writes that she finds "elements of [JJ's] new paintings reading like a fantastical projection of what you might see happening inside the artists' mind or behind their eyes. I suppose this could be visual, intellectual or scientific. It is almost as though he has arrived […]
Zhu Jinshi: Power & Country
Hunter Braithwaite writes about Zhu Jinshi's monumental triptch 权力与江山 (Power and Country) on view in the exhibition Alone Together at the Rubell Family Collection, Miami through August 2, 2013. Braithwaite begins: "You smell the paintings in the back of your throat and try to take shallow breaths. The three 16-foot-tall oils strive upwards to the ideal of […]
Kimathi Donkor: Retelling History
Caroline Menezes interviews painter Kimathi Donkor whose works were recently on view in the exhibition Queens of the Undead, at Iniva, London. Donkor comments: "I respect the viewer who goes to the gallery and wants to experience something that is uplifting or disturbing, that engages them intellectually. I am not just trying to put them […]
Frank Moore: Painting Death
Mira Schor reviews the exhibition Toxic Beauty: The Art of Frank Moore at NYU’s Grey Art Gallery and Fales Library, New York, on view through December 8, 2012. Schor writes that "instead of accepting the narrative of the death of painting, [Moore] turned from performance/video to painting when the subject turned from life to death… […]
Mark Bradford: The Revival of Abstraction
Max Weintraub reviews the exhibition Mark Bradford at Sikkema Jenkins Co., New York, on view through December 22, 2012. Weintraub writes that "Mark Bradford’s monumental new work, currently on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York, continues the artist’s almost single-handed revival of contemporary abstraction from its doldrums, and affirms to my mind […]
New Possibilities: Abstract Painting from the 70s
Patterns That Connect
Andy Parkinson blogs about the exhibition New Possibilities: Abstract Paintings from the Seventies at The Piper Gallery, on view through December 21, 2012. Parkinson writes: “In the seventies abstract painting in Britain was in crisis. At least that’s how it seemed to some. If during the sixties it had become hegemonic that privileged position was […]
Trudy Benson: Interview
Steven Cox interviews painter Trudy Benson. Benson discusses her process including working from digital sketches. She comments: “I use the most basic digital imaging program that came with my studio computer – a P.C. – to make sketches which I use as guides for certain parts of my paintings. I don’t really plan out my […]
Painting in Connecticut
Joanne Mattera photo blogs visits several recent painting exhibitions in Connecticut including Molly Herman at Amy Simon Fine Art and Susan Carr: Recent Painting and Elizabeth Gourlay: A year long song at Giampietro Gallery. Mattera also posts several images of works by Clint Jukkala and Kevin Finklea.
Per Kirkeby @ the Phillips
Henry McMahon reviews the exhibition Per Kirkeby: Paintings and Sculpture at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C., on view through January 6, 2013. McMahon writes: "If you take a formal element of Kirkeby’s early works and follow it into his mature paintings, which begin in earnest around 1980 and comprise the majority of the Phillips exhibition, […]
Louise P. Sloane: In Studio
Painter Jeffrey Collins posts a video segment from his studio visit with Louise P. Sloane. Collins will edit his series of interviews into a future documentary entitled Who's Afraid of Red Yellow and Blue. In this clip Sloane narrates the development of her recent work. Rogene Cuerden has written that Sloane "has created richly saturated […]
Matthew William Robinson: Interview
Joe Bun Keo interviews painter Matthew William Robinson about his work. Robinson notes: "I build images from images, images of structures from images of structures. They look shattered and broken, but are being mended from the broken to form a whole again. I use images of my surroundings, notes, samples to recreate. The post-apocalyptic aesthetic […]
Lisa Breslow: Interview
John Seed interviews painter Lisa Breslow on the occasion of her exhibition at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, New York, on view through December 15, 2012. Asked about balancing abstraction and representation in her work, Breslow comments: " I'm always searching for the perfect balance between the two. In creating the urban scenes, my photographs enable […]
Jackson Pollock & John Cage
Jason Andrew writes about two concurrent exhibitions: Jackson Pollock: A Centennial Exhibition at Jason McCoy Gallery (through December 14) and John Cage: The Sight of Silence at the National Academy Museum (through January 13). Andrew writes: "Pollock and Cage were aesthetic extremes of each other. Pollock sought to make paintings that were entirely an expression […]
Douglas Florian: Studio Visit
Daniel Galas photo blogs his visit to the studio of painter Douglas Florian. Galas writes that Florian "often uses gessoed brown paper bag to paint on. He almost exclusively uses this surface for creating drawings, but has chosen to do most of his paintings on wood… Sometimes on wood that he has found and sometimes […]