Jay DeFeo @ Hosfelt Gallery
Nadiah Fellah reviews an exhibition of rarely seen works by Jay DeFeo at Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, on view through October 22, 2011. Fellah notes that the show "brings together over forty works by DeFeo, including graphite drawings, paintings, photographs, and photocopies, many of which have never been shown before… Through the diverse representation of […]
Joan Brown: Towards Unexpected Joy
John Seed blogs about the painter Joan Brown and his experiences as her student. Seed writes: "Brown, in her words and in her art, was uncompromisingly assertive. Her toughness didn't endear her to everyone, but over the long haul it was the quality that distanced her from a difficult childhood and moved her towards the […]
De Kooning: Until 1949
Altoon Sultan blogs about the MoMA de Kooning retrospective, focusing on the early career paintings before 1950. Writing about Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, c. 1937, Sultan remarks: "I am struck by the pure grace of this image, and find myself thinking of Indian miniatures, which also have flat areas of gorgeous color bounded by […]
Forrest Bess: 100 Years
Lucia Simek reviews the exhibition Forrest Bess 100Years: Paintings by Forrest and His Friends at Kirk Hopper Fine Art, Dallas, on view through October 23, 2011. The show includes paintings by Bess, Chuck Webster, Andrew Masullo, and Chris Martin. Simek writes: "Bess's work is powerful in its preciousness – aching with an intensity and fervor […]
Tatiana Berg & Sarah Faux
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Tatiana Berg and Sarah Faux: Dank, at Tomkins Projects, Brooklyn, NY, on view through October 22, 2011. Along with installation photos, Butler notes that Berg and Faux "embrace a haphazard, accidental approach to painting in which 'stripes of spray-paint and globs of oil chase a perverse formalism to the […]
Artist Jounals: Beyond the Bio
Vicki Schneider revels in the visceral qualities of the artist journal. She writes: "Reading the daily bric-a-brac of people's lives, where Manet bought his shoes before his duel with Duranty, who met Courbet for dinner at the Café Andler; these small curios of information plunge me into their world in a way that a biography […]
Chris Martin: Wake Up Call
Nancy Princenthal reviews Chris Martin: Painting Big at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., on view through October 23, 2011. Princenthal asks: "Are these immersive fields of pure visual sensation, or narrative works meant to be considered, like conceptual art, at reading distance? Abstraction or figuration? Handmade originals or pastiches of photo-based imagery? Martin […]
Epic Miniatures
Maria Seda-Reeder reviews Realms of Intimacy: Miniaturist Practice from Pakistan at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, on view through January 22, 2012. Seda-Reeder writes that "the traditional practice of miniature creation is applied to contemporary non-miniature works. And as demonstrated by artists like Ambreen Butt in Realms of Intimacy, the […]
Anne Neely: Waterworks
Franklin Einspruch reviews the recent exhibition Anne Neely: Mopang: Recent Work at Lohin Geduld Gallery. Einspruch writes that Neely's paintings "contemplate water, below the earth and above… The horizon line, often implicit in her work, became recognizable as a geographic distance… She has an extraordinary appetite for details, and details can overwhelm a composition with […]
Carrie Moyer: Belladonna Treatment
Eric Sutphin reviews the exhibition Carrie Moyer: Canonical at CANADA Gallery, New York, on view through October 16, 2011. Sutphin writes: " Moyer's in-your-face compositional structures influenced by her engagement with agitprop and interest in Constructivist design give way to a kind of ambiguous space that feels extra terrestrial. These paintings are slow reads, petri […]
Bad Infinity
Dan Coombs responds to the exhibition Matter at APT Gallery, London, a show of artists whose works "display abstract qualities, have a strong material presence and use their own materiality as subject." Coombs considers "materiality as subject" in relation to the paintings of Robert Ryman, noting: "What for me is powerful about Ryman's work is […]
Melissa Meyer: Paintings & Watercolors
Joanne Mattera blogs about the exhibition Melissa Meyer: New Paintings and Watercolors at Lennon, Weinberg, on view through October 29. Mattera writes: "Meyer squeezes out a lot of color, saturated color, engaging the picture plane flat up against the surface as well as deep into the distance. I could look at them endlessly as they […]
Sharon Horvath: Studio Visit
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting pay a video studio visit to painter Sharon Horvath. Horvath remarks: "I think of painting as… a mineralization of my mind, temporary, as it's own kind of body…"
Clyfford Still’s Stalwart
Judith H. Dobrzynski interviews Clyfford Still Museum director about the Still, who Sobel sees as the first Abstract Expressionist, as well as the initial exhibition plans for the museum's opening. Dobrzynski writes: "Mr. Sobel believes that the display will surprise even scholars: Some two-thirds of the paintings have never been exhibited and nearly no one […]
Paul Corvers: Mixed Grays
Paul Behnke posts about painter Paul Corvers. Behnke writes that Corvers' "work occupies a considered space between representation and abstraction that continually prompts memory and associations in the viewer. The use of gray is instrumental in the process, bringing a vague uncertianty to bear that allows for a mysterious, open interpretation."
Scott Malbaurn at Janet Kurnatowski
Mario Naves reviews the exhibition Scott Malbaurn: Lean at at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, on view through November 13, 2011. Naves writes: "Mining high modernism for its rigor and clarity, Malbaurn uncovers nuances of pictorial form within circumscribed parameters. Make that seemingly circumscribed: Malbaurn's recent explorations of the chevron are proof that a given motif is […]
Julie Torres: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews Brooklyn painter Julie Torres about her work and process. "These days I mostly work on the floor, with acrylic on paper. I make a huge mess and try not to edit anything I do as I do it. If I have a good idea, I usually don't know about it till after […]
Loren Munk: Interview
Hrag Vartanian interivews painter Loren Munk about his recent exhibition of paintings Location, Location, Location at Lesley Heller Workspace. Munk recalls "I realized there was a great big pile of material that could somehow be turned into paintings. I decided to take Ad Reinhardt's quip 'All art comes from art and nothing else' literally. It […]
Kitaj: Portraits and Reflections
Dr Janet McKenzie reviews the recent exhibition RB Kitaj: Portraits and Reflections at Abbot Hall Art Gallery. McKenzie writes: "Kitaj was one of the most formidable and articulate artists to develop a personal iconography drawing inspiration from a range of sources. The human figure is central to his work, and in this he was against […]
Walter Sickert: Dark Alleys
Rebecca Harp blogs about German/British painter Walter Sickert. Harp posts a fantastic image gallery and notes: "I personally think that his nude paintings are his best works, but I have included here below as many as I could find. Following Degas' advice, Sickert painted in the studio, working from drawings and memory as an escape […]