Award-winning NYC blogazine, primarily about painting
Sunday, February 28, 2021
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 […]
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 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 Sharon Butler / In “Dream Paintings,” Ken Weathersby’s solo show at Minus Space, the surfaces of his tidy geometric abstractions feature carefully crafted, oddly shaped holes. Handwritten passages of text have been inserted into the voids, as if the painting were an oversized frame for, and possibly the […]
By Laurie Fendrich / Critics have been lavish in their praise of the Brown, queer-themed figurative paintings by the Pakistani-born Brooklyn artist Salman Toor, currently on view in the Whitney Museum’s first-floor lobby gallery (free of charge to the public). And rightly so. Toor’s pictures touch the heart, and his […]
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / By the most salient political parameters – governance, public health, the rule of law – 2020 was one of the worst years in living memory. Hobbled by Covid-19, art overall seemed commensurately downbeat, but also pensively defiant. In cinema, if a dominant theme emerged, it […]
Contributed by Paul Laster / Creating playful paintings with psychological twists, Clayton Schiff makes his 56 Henry exhibition debut with the solo show Small World, featuring five medium-scale canvases (all from 2019 and 2020) that depict cartoon-like characters in poetic realms. A 2009 RISD BFA grad, Schiff has been gaining […]
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Nicole Eisenman and the triumph of painting
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Just about every piece in Nicole Eisenman’s nobly minatory exhibition “Al-ugh-ories” at the New Museum, up through June 26, pulses with aesthetic energy, turbocharged by ...
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 ...