Mark Bradford: Best Painter in America?
Thomas Micchelli blogs about the paintings of Mark Bradford, on view at Sikkema Jenkins & Co, New York through December 22, 2012. Driven to see the exhibition by a suggestion in the New York Times that Bradford may be "the best painter working in America today," Micchelli concludes that "credible case can be made" for […]
William Baziotes: The Shooting Star
George Negroponte writes about the work of painter William Baziotes. Negroponte laments the lack of contemporary recognition for Baziotes' work, writing that the artist's "eloquent and calm sensibility set him apart from his contemporaries. His brooding, strange and melancholic poetry was like nothing else in American art, then or now. In some respects his association […]
Escape from the Banal… Toward the Ideal
As part of a series on artist-curators, Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition The escape from the banal of everyday life to the world of the ideal, curated by Brooke Moyse, at NURTUREart, Brooklyn, on view through November 30, 2012. Butler writes: "Presenting uncharacteristic work by abstract artists Jonathan Allmeier, Tamara Gonzales, EJ Hauser, Stephen […]
Gillian Ayres: Paintings from the 50s
Robin Greenwood writes about an exhibition of paintings by Gillian Ayres at Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, on view through November 25, 2012. Greenwood notes: "Far from concentrating upon their own materiality, I very much like the fact that these works are really quite modest and meagre in their use of paint, judicious in the means of manufacture, and […]
Wayne Thiebaud @ Acquavella
New American Paintings Blog
Michael Klein reviews the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud: A Retrospective at Acquavella Galleries, New York, on view through November 30, 2012. Klein writes: “If Edward Hopper can be called the painter of the East coast certainly Wayne Thiebaud can be considered the painter of the West coast. What Thiebaud represents is post war America, what we’ve […]
Al Loving: Torn Canvas
James Kalm visits the exhibition Al Loving: Torn Canvas at Gary Snyder Gallery, New York, on view through December 15, 2012. Kalm writes that the exhibition "presents a group of groundbreaking sewn assemblage/tapestries using Loving's geometric abstract forms. Using dyes found fabrics and colored thread these pieces also delve into formalistic issues related to Process […]
Clare Grill: Interview
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy interview painter Clare Grill. Grill discusses the source materials for her abstract paintings but she comments: "Often I'll start a painting with some kind of.. image or thing, then once the painting starts, the painting starts to have it's own set of rules at play, and then that's where the […]
Melissa Dunn: Studio Visit
Paul Behnke visits the studio of painter Melissa Dunn. In addition to posting extensive photos, Behnke writes: "Dunn's abstracted compositions have their origin in drawings and collages based on a wide range of source material. Yet once the paintings, proper, have begun, a reliable intuition comes to fore. At this point, Dunn alternates between that […]
Exploring Surfaces / Examining Supports
David Harper previews the exhibition Surfaces, Supports: Tatiana Berg and Evan Nesbit at Storefront Bushwick, on view November 16 – December 23, 2012. "Berg's work is fast, active, and smooth. She has described her work as being about an 'indulgent painterly lust.' For Berg, the space of the surface of a painting is 'performative' and […]
Will Barnet (1911 -2012)
Painter Will Barnet died Tuesday at the age of 101. In the New York Times obituary, Ken Johnson writes "In the prints and paintings that he produced from the mid-1960s on, Mr. Barnet ranged between a simplified form of realism and a poetic, visionary symbolism." In 2011, the Times' Hilarie M. Sheets noted that Barnet […]
Giorgio Morandi’s Dust
Larry Groff posts trailers for a new film about Giorgio Morandi. La polvere di Morandi is directed by Mario Chemello, produced by Imago Orbis in association with the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna. Morandi's Dust, which takes it's name from the artist's insistence that the bottles and jars he painted never be dusted, "focuses […]
Love of Painting
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Love curated by Stephen Truax and presented by Art Blog Art Blog, on view at One River Gallery, Englewood, NJ, through December 21, 2012. Love, featuring work by a diverse group of Brooklyn painters, celebrates the emotional attachment both painters and conceptual artists have for the medium, a 'love' […]
Tom Burckhardt: Pretty Little Liars
John Yau reviews the exhibition Tom Burckhardt: Pretty Little Liars at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, on view through November 24, 2012. Yau writes: "At his best, Burckhardt is able embrace both the abstract and the representational is such that we must read the paintings in different, often contradictory ways without ever reaching a […]
Agnes Martin: Last Conversation
David John posts an excerpt from an interview with Arne Glimcher where Glimcher recalls his final conversation with painter Agnes Martin. Glimcher remarks: "I was there at the end of her life and she said ‘go down to the studio, there are three paintings. Hanging on the wall is the one I want to keep, […]
Alexander Kroll: Abstraction & Nature
Kyle Fitzpatrick interviews Los Angeles based painter Alexander Kroll, whose exhibition The Florist, The Loquat and Yes will be on view at CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, from November 18 – January 6, 2013. Discussing his process Kroll remarks: "I never plan these paintings… In fact, they’re really a lot like Los Angeles: there is a […]
De Kooning Paints Woman I
Thomas B. Hess' records the tortuous evolution of Willem de Kooning's seminal painting Woman I, 1950-52. Hess writes: "The painting’s energetic and lucid surfaces, its resoundingly affirmative presence, give little indication of a vacillating, Hamlet-like history. Woman appears inevitable, like a myth that needed but a quick name to become universally applicable. But like any […]
Painting Toward Three Dimensions
James Kalm visits the exhibition Painting Toward Three Dimensions at Galerie Richard, New York. The show, featuring paintings by Bram Bogart, Ron Gorchov and Takesada Matsutani, was closed due to flooding from Hurricane Sandy. All three painters move painting beyond two-dimensions. Kalm notes that "The works of both Bogart and Matsutani explore the use of […]
Jim Lee: Interview
Painter's Bread
Michael Rutherford interviews painter Jim Lee about his work and process. Lee comments: "For me, it’s just about working with my materials and trying to understand how to transition from one to the next, incorporating the physical vs. the visual. Whether its pieces of wood, a slice of linen, graphite marks, oil, latex paints, rubber, […]
Color Country
Christopher Lowrance posts about the exhibition Color Country featuring work by Tom Gregg, Daniel Reneau, and Anne Thompson at the University of Central Missouri's Gallery 115, on view through December 7, 2012. Lowrance writes: "All three make work that considers the perception of color, and also the desire to define color, make it mean something […]
Judith Linhares: In Conversation
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Judith Linhares about her work. Speaking about her process Linhares remarks: "I might start my canvases with a ground of half purple and half yellow, and go from there. I work with complementary colors a lot. I do not trust ideas that come to my mind – instead, they have to […]