Jay DeFeo: Mechanics
David M. Roth reviews the recent exhibition Jay DeFeo: Mechanics at Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco. Roth writes: "DeFeo understood the transformative power of combining different media. Her assemblages of cut-up photos made on a copy machine yield some of the show’s highlights. The trio of images in which she tops the shape of an angel […]
Phong Bui @ Show Room
James Kalm visits the exhibition Phong Bui: Work According To The Rail, Part I, curated By Ricardo Kugelmas, at Show Room, New York, on view through November 25, 2012. Kalm notes that "Bui is well known as an art writer, publisher of the controversial Brooklyn Rail, educator, and art world personality. He is equally respected […]
Lois Dodd: Poetic Grit of a Landscape Painter
Stephen Knudsen writes about the work of Lois Dodd, on view in the recent retrospective exhibition Catching the Light at the Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City (on view at the Portland Art Museum, Maine from January 17, 2013 – April 3, 2013). Knusdsen writes: "Dodd is strongest when she comes closer to artist Fairfield Porter […]
Patrick Jones: Pure Colour
Nick Moore reviews the recent exhibition Pure Colour, paintings by Patrick Jones at Gloss-Art, Exeter. Moore writes: "Walking through the rooms in this show was like having access to the thoughts, feelings and process of the painter; there were themes, variations, series and one-off experiments and it is rare to see this openness in an exhibition… […]
Handmade Abstraction
Ben Meyer reviews two shows of intimate abstractions, Alex Paik: Recapitulation Bop and Nicole Phungrasamee Fein: where, at Gallery Joe, Philadelphia, on view through November 10, 2012. Meyer writes: "The overall impression of Paik’s works is synesthetic, not kinetic. The unique combination of musical notes, feelings and colors evoked by each piece could be different […]
To Be a Lady Painter
James Panero reviews the exhibition To Be a Lady: Forty-five Women in the Arts, curated by Jason Andrew, at at 1285 Avenue of the Americas Gallery, New York, on view through January 18, 2013. Panero writes: "It’s too bad that the language of music cannot apply to visual art. We all know there’s a difference […]
Christopher Gallego: Interview
Larry Groff interviews painter Christopher Gallego about his work and process. Gallego remarks: "The game of painting is played on two levels. First there is the artist, making decisions, solving problems, doing the actual work. Then there is the other self that watches the artist at work, monitoring one’s own thoughts and emotions… I’ll pick […]
Shirley Kaneda & Jonathan Lasker on Conceptual Abstraction
In separate interviews, Tyler Green talks to painters Shirley Kaneda and Jonathan Lasker about the exhibition Conceptual Abstraction at Hunter College Art Galleries, New York, on view through November 10, 2012. Green begins both very interesting conversations by asking each artist the same question: "Is there a meaninful difference being an abstract painter in 1990 […]
Eric Sall: Studio Visit
Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy visit the studio of painter Eric Sall. Sall comments: "I'm always curious about this point where the idea of the image in the painting alludes to recognizable experiences, or objects, or things, but it's always subject to change instantaneously, most of these paintings have had many versions of themselves, they've […]
Bridget Riley: Repetition, Rhythm, & Learning to Look
In a recent interview with The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins, painter Bridget Riley discussed “movement, shimmering, sparkling and reflecting … all those things that happen in landscape” as the inspiration for her abstract paintings. In the two videos below, Riley elaborates on the influence of landscape from an early age, and the visual power found in […]
Newman & Still: The Dominant Vertical
Tyler Green traces the development of the dominant vertical as a compositional device in the works by Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still. Green writes: "Around 1927 or 1928 Still began painting trains moving through the flat, open West, possibly the high plains around Spokane, Wash., where he was living… Extending upward from these trains is […]
Bridget Riley: Sikkens Prize Interview
Charlotte Higgins interviews painter Bridget Riley, winner of the 2012 Sikkens Prize. Riley recalls that her start as an abstract painter came from her dissatisfaction with rendering the landscape from observation. She told Higgins: "So I decided to start again to find a new beginning – to start from the themes themselves, that is to […]
Picasso in Two Colors
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Picasso Black and White at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view through January 23, 2012. Perl writes that "if black and white was sometimes a shorthand for Picasso – and even occasionally a copout – it was also a way of cutting away the fat, of getting to the […]
Peter Young: Empire of Dirt
Michael Bilsborough reviews an exhibition of paintings by Peter Young at Algus Greenspon Gallery, New York, on view through November 3, 2012. In addition to providing a history of Young's career, Bilsborough discusses individual paintings. He writes: "The Algus Greenspon exhibition brings us the most recent paintings, selected from a series made between 1995 and […]
Laura Owens: Pavement Karaoke / Alphabet
William Kherbek reviews the exhibition Laura Owens: Pavements/Karaoke Alphabet at Sadie Coles HQ, London, on view through November 17, 2012. Kherbek writes: "It isn’t easy making interesting paintings these days, what with even good artists thinking that a few squiggles on their iPhone converted into oils suffices to become 'Now', but Owens’ works manage the […]
Gillian Ayres: Video Interview
An extended look into the artist’s studio, viewers see Ayres at work and hear her thoughts on painting.
Ernst Wilhelm Nay @ Michael Werner
James Kalm visits the recent exhibition Ernst Wilhelm Nay: Paintings at Michael Werner Gallery, New York. Kalm notes: "Beginning as a follower of master Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and despite being labeled a "Degenerate Artist" (denied exhibition opportunities, and even materials), then conscripted in to the Army, Nay nevertheless persisted in his artistic practice. His […]
Edwin Dickinson: Jumping On a Moving Train
Frank Hobbs blogs some excerpts from Mary Ellen Abell’s essay Seeing Everything for the First Time: The Teaching and Aesthetic Philosophy of Edwin Dickinson as well as examples of Dickinson's drawings. Abell writes: "One of the key aspects of the aesthetic experience in the Dickinson class was its stress on seeing things freshly, with no […]
Susan Jane Walp @ Tibor de Nagy
Caleb De Jong reviews the exhibition Susan Jane Walp: Recent Paintings at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, on view through November 24, 2012. De Jong writes: "Walp’s paintings evince the imperative to ‘get the right eyes’, how nature can only be truly viewed through long and deliberate trial. Her choice of still life painting […]
Charles Demuth’s Watercolors
Jacob Feige writes about discovering a room of Charles Demuth's watercolors at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Feige writes: "Easily missed and slightly out of place, these small gems of color and bygone entertainment are endearingly awkward, full of a strange anemic energy; they are a rare note of levity in an otherwise fairly stern […]