Making New Sense of Abstraction
Jonathan Goodman reviews an exhibition of paintings by Lisa Abbott-Canfield and Bettina Blohm at the Amelia A. Wallace Gallery, SUNY College at Old Westbury, on view through March 15, 2012. Goodman writes: "Painting is far from being moribund in New York, despite the elegies of critics and academic writers; its place as the dominant medium in […]
Fabian Marcaccio’s ‘Paintants’
John Yau looks at new work by artist Fabian Marcaccio. Yau writes that Marcaccio's "recurring subject is the repeated and insistent destruction of the human body. Marcaccio has juiced Gerhardt Richter's flatfooted pictoriality into something visceral and strange. He has gone way beyond the photographic blur into a sci-fi realm where deformation is the norm." […]
John Frederick Kensett, Minimalist
Altoon Sultan blogs about the work of Luminist painter John Frederick Kensett whose work is on view in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new American wing. After viewing the new installation, Sultan writes, "It's as though I saw a completely new painter, one who looked at the world with a sense of its essential nature, […]
Edward Hopper’s Sun on Prospect Street
Painter Robert Anderson considers Edward Hopper's Sun on Prospect Street (Gloucester, Mass), 1934, in the collection of the Cincinnati Museum of Art. Anderson writes that "The piece is very familiar yet foreign at the same time… the painting pulls you in and makes you stay with it. In its bold use of economy, it opens […]
Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Painting Wisdom
Frank Hobbs finds contemporary relevance in the 18th century Discourses of painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. Hobbs writes that Reynolds' discourses "are rich indeed, and still speak to the concerns of students of painting today, if you have the patience to parse the meat from the embroidery of 18th century rhetoric… My favorite of the Discourses […]
Janet Fish: Hallucinatory Beauty
Ilka Scobie review the exhibition Janet Fish: Recent Paintings at D.C. Moore Gallery, New York, on view through March 17, 2012. Scobie writes: "Combining defined movement with detailed arrangement, Fish's still lives mirror her reality: shelves of glass and pottery, both in the artists Soho and Vermont studios, reflect many years of collecting. She has […]
Rothko’s Portland
An extensive 2009 history of Mark Rothko's life and work in Portland, Oregon by Arcy Douglass; posted here on the occasion of the Mark Rothko Retrospective exhibition on view at the Portland Museum of Art, Oregon through May 17, 2012. Douglass' reasearch examines "the time that Mark Rothko had spent in Portland and what implications, […]
The Mystery of Appearance
Celia White reviews the exhibition The Mystery of Appearance: Conversations Between Ten British Post-War Painters at Haunch of Venison, London, on view through February 18, 2012. White notes that "The question of how painting, and representation in general, can make objects, ideas or impressions come into being can hardly be considered specific to these artists' […]
Gary Stephan: Studio Visit
Gary Stephan discusses his work with Zachary Keeting and Christopher Joy. Stephan comments: "What I want to do is set up a set of parameters that let me to do things and then hopefully get a picture, that at the end, is pretty unexpected… I'll very often go in with a plan. I'll have a […]
Jacob Ouillette: Painter’s Palette
Megan M. Garwood interviews painter Jacob Ouillette about the work in his recent exhibition Brushstroke Paintings at Nancy Margolis Gallery. Ouillette remarks: "Each brushstroke is applied in one single motion, one pass, from left to right with no revisions allowed, or necessary, like the mark of a calligraphers brush. The paintings are created almost as […]
Hugh Mendes: Obituaries
An essay by Ben Street on Hugh Mendes' Obituary paintings which will be on view at Charlie Smith Gallery, London from February 24 – March 31, 2012. Street writes that "Mendes' paintings are really only portraits at a remove. Strictly speaking, they're portraits treated as still lifes, paintings of photographic images made distant in the […]
Andrew Lenaghan
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Andrew Lenaghan: Recent Paintings at George Adams Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2012. Naves writest that "Lenaghan has long been drawn to areas of Brooklyn that, when not mundane, are distinctly unlovely – a graffiti-laden building in Greenpoint, anonymous industrial structures in Williamsburg and the stained and […]
Van Dyck in Sicily
Chloe Nelkin visits the exhibition Van Dyck in Sicily: Painting and the Plague, 1624 – 25 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London on view through May 27, 2012. Nelkin writes that "Van Dyck arrived in Palermo in 1624 expecting to complete a commission," however, she continues, "In May 1624, a ship from Tunis arrived at […]
Greg Lindquist: You Are Nature
Jonathan Beer reviews the exhibition Greg Lindquist: You Are Nature at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, on view through March 10, 2012. Beer notes that Lindquist "deploys many conceptual devices within the paintings… Photographic formatting and cropping reminiscent of television screens frames heavily textured scenes of minimalistic ruins. Typical suburban scenery fills crusty airplane television […]
Ellsworth Kelly: Interview
Video interview with Ellsworth Kelly. He discusses his approach to drawing and printmaking on the occasion of the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through April 22, 2012. Kelly remarks: "When I draw I don't find my solution in doing it, like de Kooning or […]
Diebenkorn: Provisional Action, Provisional Vision
Matthew Ballou looks at Richard Diebenkorn's Ocean Park paintings through the lens of "provisional painting." Ballou writes that "To get a clear view of Diebenkorn's connection with provisionality one must think about the sense of compositional balance exemplified in the Ocean Park Series. It is a balance that is hard-won yet still teetering on the […]
James Rosenquist’s F-111
Cara Manes blogs a history of James Rosenquist's monumental painting F-111 that was recently re-installed a the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The painting will remain on view through July 30, 2012. Manes notes that "The subject, the F-111 fighter-bomber plane, was in development at the time as part of a military initiative that […]
Bill Jensen: Interview
Peter Brock interviews painter Bill Jensen on the occasion of his current exhibition of new paintings at Cheim & Read Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2012. Jensen discusses in depth his the origins of his recent group of triptychs. He remarks: "I think with the physical dimension of the panels, I'm able […]
The Power of Portraits
Altoon Sultan visits the exhibition The Renaissance Portrait from Donatello to Bellini at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on view through March 18, 2012. Sultan writes: "When we look at a portrait painted hundreds of years ago, do we enter into the life of the person portrayed? For me, it is less the understanding of […]
Glenn Goldberg: Elixirs, Tales & Remedies
John Yau reviews Glenn Goldberg: Elixirs, Tales and Remedies at Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, on view through February 24, 2012. Yau writes: "By wanting his paintings 'to take you toward, not away,' Goldberg rejects spectacle, entertainment, anything that tries to distract you from time passing, everyday life, and mortality. He has developed and honed […]