Charlotta Westergren
Christopher S. Johnson discovers the paintings of Charlotta Westergren, an artist whose work engages with "Christian themes and imagery that defined the Western tradition for centuries." It's easy to forget that the freedom of limitations the materials and means of painting provide once also included prescribed subject matter, it was up to each artist to […]
70 Years of Abstract Painting; Excerpts
Coining the term "anti-immediate," Mario Naves' latest post finds the internal logic and "elusive sense of, not so much time away, as time passing" in the work of Helen Miranda Wilson to be a meaningful antidote to search engine driven culture. Wilson's work is on view in the exhibition 70 Years of Abstract Painting – […]
Elisabeth Condon
Sharon Butler visits Elisabeth Condon's lively exhibition Climb the Black Mountain at Lesley Heller Workspace. The exhibition, Butler writes, "reveals a painter in the prime of her painting life. Condon's colorful, trippy paintings exude the confidence and energy of a seasoned artist who knows how to unfurl an image with both abandon and control."
Francis Bacon Describes His Painting Process
Kyle Chayka highlights an interesting documentary film on the painter Francis Bacon in which Bacon "talks through one of his most iconic works [Painting, 1946] and explains how he makes paintings. The documentary features a series of conversations between Bacon and interviewer Melvyn Bragg." Bacon also speaks about Ingres and there is an interlude that […]
Margie Livingston
As part of a series Artist vs. Studio, Erin Langner looks at the work of Seattle-based painter Margie Livingston. Livingston's current works, Paint Objects, are simultaneously painting and sculpture. Langer writes: "Livingston’s studio mirrors the direction of her practice through the presence of drills, saws and other power tools throughout the otherwise traditional painter’s studio."
Phoebe Unwin
Alli Sharma interviews artist Phoebe Unwin. Unwin speaks about her working process: "I don’t know what any of the paintings will look like when they’re finished, that’s part of it. I like that working process of being surprised by how something might look but that also means that it’s important to be comfortable with failure […]
Anne Harris: “They start with me…”
John Seed profiles painter Anne Harris. He writes that Harris paints "women who transfix their viewers with projections of uncomfortable and uncanny emotional states. Each of her paintings is a paradox, a challenge, a chimera, and to some degree a self-portrait." The post is illustrated with a selection of Harris' paintings including a work in […]
Guston in Rome
Greg Lindquist visits the exhibition Philip Guston: Roma at the Phillips Collection through May 15, 2011. Lindquist writes: "We see Guston developing his visual vocabulary and palette… [and] distilling lessons in overlapping form and space… What is most fascinating about this body of work is how worlds of antiquity and the contemporary meld through Guston’s […]
Charlotte Salomon, Life? or Theater?
Liz Hager writes about the work of Charlotte Salomon whose work is on view in the exhibition Life? or Theatre? at the the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco through July 31, 2011. Completed while evading the Nazis in southern France, Charlotte Salomon's "fictionalized autobiography, Life? or Theater?… 769 of gouache paintings with text and […]
Forrest Bess, Roughneck Artist
Paul Doran's post about painter Forrest Bess includes a link to Michael Brenson's article Forrest Bess: Desire Ruled His Vision as well as a link to the Forrest Bess website, a great resource on the artist that includes paintings, letters, articles, and more.
Lorenzo Lotto in Rome
Bruce Boucher writes an in depth review of the exhibition Lorenzo Lotto on view at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome through June 12, 2011. Boucher introduces Lotto as "an outlier in Italian Renaissance art, a portrait painter capable of capturing the soul on canvas, a man whose religious art struck a note of sincerity in […]
Farrell Brickhouse: Interview
Interview with painter Farrell Brickhouse about his current work and studio practice: "…things emerge each time I work that surprise me. Sometimes the whole process collapses, what was a presence in a previous painting now is just a cartoon of its self, it’s frightening but part of the making of things. "
Daniel Brice at Western Project
Christopher Knight reviews Daniel Brice Paintings at Western Projects, Los Angeles through April 30, 2011. Knight writes: "Abstract painting never looked more beat up, knocked down, abraded and used… and turns out lovelier for its tenacity… [his] work reminds us of the coincidence between that unfounded assertion of mortality and the slow, steady emergence of abstraction […]
Rochelle Feinstein: Painting isn’t enough…
Sharon Butler visits Rochelle Feinstein's exhibition, The Estate of Rochelle F. on view at On Stellar Rays through May 1, 2011. In addition to images from of Feinstein's work, Butler excerpts two recent interviews with artist. Feinstein says: "The Estate relies on the depletion of those things already available, including older paintings. Two rules emerged […]
Lynn Woods Turner at Danese
Painter Steven Alexander visits Lynn Woods Turner's exhibition at Danese Gallery on view through April 16, 2011. He writes: "This is a surprising show of insistently quiet small objects — exquisitely simple and sensuous paintings on linen that explore elemental geometric configurations"
25th Street Painting
Charles Kessler writes: "If you love painting, 25th Street in Chelsea is the place to go. In one block between 10th and 11th there are four shows of sensual, masterful paintings. No Post Modern irony here — these are real painters' paintings." Enough said. Read on and then, if you're in New York, go see […]
Emily Mason: Recent Paintings
Phong Bui reviews Emily Mason: Recent Paintings at David Findlay, Jr., Fine Art. Bui writes: "By allowing painterly gestures to coexist with thin, poured layers in a wide range of colors in all manner of hues and saturations, Mason is able to amplify her colors—which are infused with forms that derive from both memory and […]
Stuart Shils Interview
In a post lavishly illustrated with images of Shils monotypes, studio views of new paintings in progress and a video, Neil Plotkin interviews painter Stuart Shils about his work and his recent paintings and monotypes. Shils speaks personally and candidly about changing his work, the relationship between his prints and his paintings, and memory versus […]
Ky Anderson
Interview with painter Ky Anderson. "Often the real meaning of a painting comes out after it is finished, and often I don’t really quite understand what they are about. I feel that throughout my years of painting my paintings are slowly turning more and more abstract, and I’m slowly becoming okay with that. I used […]
Sarah Boxer on Hedda Sterne
Tyler Green interviews Sarah Boxer about painter Hedda Sterne. Boxer is the author of "The Last Irascible," an excellent profile of Sterne. In Green's interview Boxer includes an interesting clue to Sterne's painting practice: "…she used a lazy susan to paint, she painted in the round…" as well as insight into Sterne' artistic concerns, "One […]