Will Barnet at 100
Steven Alexander blogs about Will Barnet's consistently inspiring abstract paintings. Alexander notes that "there is no doubt still plenty of fertile ground to be cultivated creating dynamic arrangements of organic shapes with paint on canvas. The most inspiring example I know is Will Barnet, who turned 100 this year. Probably best known for his elegantly […]
Frans Hals @Met
Caleb de Jong reviews the exhibition Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum on view at the Met through October 10, 2011. De Jong writes: "Aside from sexual innuendo, moralism and paid for hire portraits (like the jewel compression on display in Petrus Scriverius and its pendant Anna Van der Aar) certain paintings illuminate a humane […]
Fran Shalom: Studio visit
Lisa Pressman photoblogs a studio visit with painter Fran Shalom. Shalom writes of her work "My works balance the formal with the playful, paring down shapes and ideas into their most basic forms. It is a search for clarity and humor… But, like life itself, there is an undercurrent of conflict beneath the whimsy, as […]
Debating Twombly & Poussin
[VIDEO] Robin Greenwood and curator Nicholas Cullinan engage in a lively debate on the juxtaposition of works Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin while on a private tour of the exhibition Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters. The exhibition is on view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery through September 25, 2011.
Kurt Schwitters: Color & Collage
Bean Gilsdorf reviews Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage at the Berkeley Art Museum on view through November 27, 2011. Gilsdorf notes that "Schwitters' hallmark was hybridity… He was associated with and influenced by many movements, including Dada, Futurism, Cubism, and Constructivism, appropriating what he thought useful or provocative from each and synthesizing it with fragments […]
Julia Schwartz: Interview
Interview with painter Julia Schwartz about her work and studio practice. Schwartz notes: "It is very rare for me to start with a conscious idea or concept. That said, I have the feeling that much of the time that I'm out in the world, I'm taking things in that are then going to go into […]
Chris Martin @ The Corcoran
[VIDEO] James Kalm video blog of Chris Martin: Painting Big at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., on view through October 23, 2011. Kalm notes that Martin is "one of the artists that… refocused a lot of attention on painting, abstract painting, eccentric painting…"
Matisse: Effort Filled Effortlessness
Deborah Barlow blogs about the "effort filled effortlessness of Matisse." She adds her thoughts to Sebastian Smee's recent profile of Matisse's Petit Interieur a la table de Marbre Ronde at the Worcester Art Museum. Barlow writes that Matisse's painting "confronts the mystery that is at the core of [his] oeuvre. His signatory effortlessness was anything […]
Roman Opalka 1931-2011
Caleb De Jong remembers conceptual painter Roman Opalka. "Ostensibly a project with roots in the European avant-garde, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Opalka's paintings question our personal relationship with the universe. Counting to infinity is a meaningless proposal given the reality of our personal finitude… Opalka foregrounds our temporal existing limitations by paintings that are never ending […]
Is the Color Gray Doomed?
Daniel Larkin reviews the recent exhibition Grey Matter at The Painting Center. He writes: "… gray can achieve visual and optical effects that other colors cannot. Gray makes the colors near it explode. The strongest abstract works in the show made this popping effect the crux of their composition."
Ken Weathersby: Time is the Diamond
Chris Ashley writes about the work of Ken Weathersby on the occasion of the exhibition Time is the Diamond at Some Walls, Oakland, CA. Ashley writes that " …painters like Ken Weathersby have shown that painting appears to continue living a healthy life long after its reported demise. Paintings do things and are about things […]
Kayla Mohammadi: Interview
“My paintings start from observation. I use seeing as a way to structure my painting. I can always go back to observation in my work if the paintings aren’t working.”
Abstraction in the Decorative Arts
Altoon Sultan looks at abstraction in the decorative arts at the Shelburne Museum. "There is a rich history of pattern in textile work; with quilting there are two strong recent abstract traditions: the simple drama of colored shapes in Amish quilts, and the remarkable inventiveness and modernity of the quilts of Gee's Bend."
Magalie Guérin: Interview
Interview with Chicago-based painter Magalie Guérin about her work and process. She notes: "A lot of time is spent sitting and looking at the shapes and surfaces on the canvas. I usually build them with gesso and have to sand down multiple coats, which is time consuming. There's a lot of removal in my process."
(Mostly) Painting in Chelsea
Paul Behnke photo blogs (mostly) painting exhibitions currently on view in Chelsea including: Kim Dorland: For Lori at Mike Weiss Gallery (through August 27), Summer Show Private Events at Blank Space (through September 2), Ghost in the Machine, curated by Stephen Westfall at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. (through August 19), and Christopher Wilmarth at Betty Cuningham […]
Twombly’s Poetics in Print
Sarah Kirk Hanley looks at painter Cy Twombly's activity as a printmaker. Hanley's post includes links to most of Twombly's major suites of prints. She writes: "Though printmaking has been an important means of expression for many artists of his generation, it was a brief endeavor for Twombly… That said, he worked in nearly all […]
Dan O’Connor: Interview
Larry Groff interviews painter Dan O'Connor about his work. O'Connor notes: "I think I am initially always drawn to strong abstract work when visiting shows or museums. As a painter, abstraction becomes pure pleasure. It is like looking at the world with all the superfluity stripped away and all that's left is the moving construction […]
Amy Feldman: Interview
Valerie Brennan interviews Brooklyn-based painter Amy Feldman. Feldman discusses her work and process stating "I always make drawings before I do paintings to get some idea about how I want to execute the paintings. Generally, the paintings stray far from my thumbnail sketches, but it's really about the attitude of the drawings that I am […]
Arcadian Painters: Poussin & Twombly
David Foster reviews the exhibition Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters on view at the Dulwich Picture Gallery through September 25, 2011. In his detailed review Foster writes that although "The show is not without its faults … there are some unlikely and provocative juxtapositions that, on reflection, are remarkably effective. The pairing of Poussin's preparatory […]
V.S. Gaitonde: Triumph of Solitude
Debu Barve profiles Indian abstract painter V.S. Gaitonde (1924-2001). Gaitonde, Barve writes, "insisted on not being categorized as an 'abstract' painter, but a 'non-objective' one instead… Abstract painting in India was dominated by gestural figurative abstraction, and the common practice of ornamenting the ideas with ethnic references and cultural motifs. In such times, Gaitonde's richly […]