Award-winning NYC blogazine, primarily about painting
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Contributed by Emma Stolarski / Plant life is one of nature’s masterpieces. Botanical beauty, medicine, and ecological systems are integrated in every part of our lives, whether we think about it or not. Despite being here well before us and defining us as humans, plants are having an especially unique […]
Contributed by Ben Pritchard / Andrew Zarou’s compelling exhibition at The Painting Center is resonant of the comprehensive order that one might covet in a time of unusual disarray, isolation, and uncertainty, when basic aims like survival and sharing have become politicized. Order, in this sense, is not strict thinking […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Martin Kline’s meticulous and thoughtful abstractions, on view at Heather Gaudio Fine Art, are deceptively simple. At first glance, they might appear merely technically accomplished and visually striking. Drill down a little, though, and they recall the action of Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings and the […]
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / In the 1940s, Philip Guston noted that the problem with figurative art was that it “vanishes into recognition.” By 1960, he was griping about the conceit that abstract art was “autonomous, pure and for itself.” The tension implied by these two conflicting but evidently valid […]
This month Two Coats of Paint is unveiling a site redesign (big thanks to Heather Bause Rubinstein for the encouragement and technical support), which includes a fantastic new feature, the Two Coats of Paint NEWSroll. The ‘roll combines the newsiness of Twitter, the utility of the old RSS readers like […]
Contributed by Rachel Youens / Stanley Rosen came of age as a sculptor during the 1960s and 1970s, when ceramicists and sculptors were challenging the hegemonic hold that painting had in the art world as the medium of heroic significance. His sculptures are made at a modest scale that, somewhat […]
Contributed by Andrew Woolbright / Angela Dufresne’s dual shows at Yossi Milo Gallery and M+B Los Angeles provide an opportunity to assess the full breadth of this influential figurative painter’s practice. The two shows, opened in tandem, nearly emptied her studio. The exhibits pose new paths forward from John Currin […]
Contributed by Patrick Neal / Spencer Lewis’s large, colorful, gestural abstractions, on view at Harper’s Chelsea, are deliciously physical and boldly display the process of their own creation. Visible from the street and hung close together, the paintings get right in your face as you enter the gallery. Gallerist Harper […]
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Mira Schor’s galvanizingly insistent new paintings continue her exploration of self and the disembodied mind. Many painters traffic in purposeful ambiguity, using metaphor and abstraction to leave meaning-making for the viewer. Schor’s work, however, is not mysterious or enigmatic: her intention is to tell us […]
Contributed by Kim Uchiyama / Intriguingly titled “Light Phrase,” Jill Nathanson’s current exhibition at Berry Campbell Gallery features luminous planes of crystalline color meeting and overlapping in harmony. The color is sensual, the light carefully calibrated, the edges thoughtfully considered. These new paintings, many larger in scale than her previous […]
Andrew Zarou’s particular beat
Andrew Zarou, under the rhodondendron 2021, flashe on unprimed linen, 16 x 12 inches
Contributed by Ben Pritchard / Andrew Zarou’s compelling exhibition at The Painting Center is resonant of the ...
Two Coats Selected Gallery Guide: February 2021
Microscope: Yasue Maetake, Transmutations, installation view
This month Two Coats of Paint is unveiling a site redesign (big thanks to Heather Bause Rubinstein for the encouragement and technical support), which includes ...
Medrie MacPhee, David Humphrey, and the power of recognition
Medrie MacPhee (back wall) and David Humphrey (front wall) at the New York Studio School. Installation view.
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / In the 1940s, Philip Guston noted that the ...
Martin Kline: Tempered by discipline
Martin Kline, Back From Venice (II), 2019, encaustic and oil on panel, 42 x 42 x 2 3/4 inches
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Martin Kline’s meticulous and thoughtful abstractions, on ...
Tula x Yuko Nishikawa: Designing life within a shell
Contributed by Emma Stolarski / Plant life is one of nature’s masterpieces. Botanical beauty, medicine, and ecological systems are integrated in every part of our lives, whether we think about ...
Scott Daniel Ellison: “Every artist is in some way self-taught”
Scott Daniel Ellison's images of flora and fauna are suffused with personhood--trees wave bony limbs, bats have human faces, and animals wear jewelry. Working at a small scale and focusing ...
Spencer Lewis’s mesmerizing formlessness
Spencer Lewis: Six Jutes (2) installation at Harper’s Chelsea. (All photos courtesy of Harper’s Chelsea).
Contributed by Patrick Neal / Spencer Lewis’s large, colorful, gestural abstractions, on view at Harper’s Chelsea ...
The “whorish porous” in the work of Angela Dufresne
Angela Dufresne, installation view at Yossi Milo
Contributed by Andrew Woolbright / Angela Dufresne’s dual shows at Yossi Milo Gallery and M+B Los Angeles provide an opportunity to assess the full ...
Art and Film: Painter-Spy in Bridge of Spies
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Bridge of Spies begins and ends with a painting. Steven Spielberg’s latest film is a penetrating and affecting consideration of the Cold War, based on ...
What good is abstract painting now?
Laurie Fendrich's new studio in Connecticut
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / Without any bombs exploding or even a single shot fired, the world we knew before COVID has gone “poof.” Sure ...