Farrell Brickhouse: Interview
James Kalm visits Farrell Brickhouse: Recent Paintings at Life on Mars Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through December 7, 2014. Kalm's video includes fantastic close-ups of Brickhouse's visceral paintings. He films the tour of the exhibition while talking to Brickhouse about his work. Asked what he finds appealing about working in oil, Brickhouse comments: "One […]
Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today Mural
Charles Kessler blogs about Thomas Hart Benton's America Today Mural Rediscovered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through April 19, 2015. Kessler writes: "I always had a hard time with Benton. I loved Abstract Expressionism and, as if I couldn't like them both, I considered Benton's work to be hokey and […]
Emyr Williams: Studio Visit
John Bunker, Anthony Smart, Anne Smart, Robin Greenwood, Sarah Greenwood, Alexandra Harley, Patrick Jones, Sam Cornish, Mark Skilton, Hilde Skilton, and Nick Moore visit the studio of painter Emyr Williams. Alexandra Harley: The "passage of colour isn’t just pure. It may be a pure colour all the way through but the juxtapositions of the other […]
Daniel Levine: Interview
Richard Benari interviews painter Daniel Levine about his monochrome paintings. Levine comments: "I tend to work in groups, and also different applications. By groups I would mean the same paint – the titanium group by 'x' brand… the titanium group by 'y' brand… the titanium group by 'z' brand. Then there would be the zincs. […]
Emily Carr in British Columbia
Nicola Homer reviews From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, on view through March 8, 2015. Homer writes: "Although Carr was one of the most advanced artists in Canada in 1913, she could not sell a single work. So her paintings languished for more than […]
Joan Brown @ Gallery Paule Anglim
John Held, Jr. reviews works by Joan Brown recently on view at Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco. Held writes: "Brown’s is the type of work that goes in and out of style based on the concerns of the era. Acknowledged as a second-generation Bay Area Figurationist, having pushed past abstract expressionism, secures her reputation on […]
Cubism: Taking a Wrench to Reality
Julian Bell takes an extensive look at the development of Cubism, through the works on view in the exhibition Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (through February 16, 2014). Bell writes of Georges Braque's Trees at L’Estaque (1908), a painting in the first gallery: "In his artistic […]
Brenda Goodman on The Guston Curse
Brenda Goodman blogs about embracing artistic influences. Goodman writes: "If you have an affinity with an artist, it’s just that- an affinity. And it’s a good thing if you allow it. Guston had influences too!—DeChirico, R. Crumb, and George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comics. And I’m an artist who has had a lot of influences–from Morandi […]
Jack Bush @ National Gallery of Canada
Peter Simpson reviews Jack Bush at The National Gallery of Canada, on view through February 22, 2015. Simpson writes that the show is "an expansive demonstration of what painting can be. Dozens of paintings, gleaned from over 50 years of Bush’s career, come together as a journey through the evolution of his style and vision. […]
Katherine Bradford: Shelf Paintings
Katherine Bradford discusses her recent “shelf” paintings on view at Arts+Leisure, New York.
Stuart Shils: Presence & Memory
Stuart Shils comments on his recent work which includes painted photographs. These works will be on view at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York from November 19 – December 21, 2014. Shils writes that "in the takeaway moments with the camera (as with drawing), there is also the slower turning around to see what […]
Bettina Blohm: Diagrams Intuited
David Rhodes reviews works by Bettina Blohm at Marc Strauss Gallery, New York, on view through December 12, 2014. Rhodes writes: "Great Escape (2014), which… measures 68 x 84 inches, has black curved strokes that change direction from one square to the next appear to possess a restless energy — like a flickering diagram. In […]
Rebecca Morris: Interview
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Rebecca Morris about her work. Asked about abandoning paintings Morris replies: "I try not to. Instead, I will turn a painting around to face the wall and wait on it. I am actually waiting on myself to catch up to the painting. I can erase things, but I need to decide […]
Tamara Gonzales: Interview
Samuel Jablon interviews painter Tamara Gonzales on the occasion of her exhibition Winter is Coming at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, on view through December 8, 2014. Asked about how the "forms relate to the patterns" in her work, Gonzales responds: "Partial abstractions? Non perspective art? While I don’t consider myself a formalist in […]
John Walker at Alexandre Gallery
John Walker’s recent paintings, on view at Alexandre Gallery, continue to revitalize abstraction through intense, prolonged immersion in nature.
What’s at Stake for Abstract Painting Today?
Joanne Greenbaum, Philip Taaffe, and Stanley Whitney discuss themes of authenticity and painting as a worthy, and a necessarily lifelong pursuit.
Alan Shields: In Motion
Janet Goleas reviews Alan Shields: In Motion at The Parrish Art Museum on view through January 19, 2015. Goreas writes: "Shields not only employed means that were traditionally female (sewing, weaving, beading), he pulled the canvas from the wall and then gave it a front, a back and an interior. He turned the structure of […]
Wayne Thiebaud: Water City
Hearne Pardee writes about a trip with Wayne Thiebaud to see Thiebaud's Water City (1959), a 250 foot long mosaic at the Sacramento Municipal Utilities Headquarters, Sacramento, CA. Pardee notes: "Essentially a gouache sketch translated into the ancient, permanent medium of mosaic, 'Water City' pays tribute to Sacramento’s two rivers. It lends public scale to […]
Rothko’s Harvard Murals: Revived
Franklin Einspruch reviews Mark Rothko's recently restored Harvard Murals on view at the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, from November 16, 2014 – July 26, 2015. Einspruch writes that the mural comprises "three canvases … abutted into a triptych over thirty feet wide, and two more large canvases face them. Each of them employs the […]
Farrell Brickhouse @ Life on Mars
Eliot Markell reviews works by Farrell Brickhouse at Life on Mars Gallery, Bushwick, Brooklyn, on view through December 2, 2014. Markell writes that "Brickhouse’s work is all about sensation and persona. Although not exclusively autobiographical, they largely stem from original sources of recalled life experience. .. Left to their own devices, Brickhouse’s brushy notions acquire […]