abstract painting – Page 5

May 7, 2024May 12, 2024, by Wallace Whitney

Vom Abend, Joe Bradley at David Zwirner

A room with paintings on the wall

Description automatically generated — Installation view, Joe Bradley: Vom Abend, David Zwirner, New York, 2024. Photo courtesy of the gallery

The ten paintings in Vom Abend, Joe Bradley’s current show at David Zwirner, measure up to 93 x 120 inches and are all dated 2023-2024. They are big and, with one exception, are in landscape orientations. Framed with white oak strips, they have stately feel, yet they are hardly genteel. They are full of crusty skins of dry paint that seem randomly attached to the surfaces. They are creased and folded. They reek of oil paint. And while the color is buoyant, joyous even, they are also dark. Bradley isn’t afraid of black, and he explores shit brown with an alarming gusto. There are passages where the paint seems to have been aggressively ripped off the surface of the canvas, only to be tenderly painted over again. There are staccato stippling marks. There is erasure and heavy impasto in stretches. Although this may sound like the paintings are heavily labored and full of themselves, they aren’t. And careful examination reveals worlds to explore.

April 18, 2024April 15, 2024, by Etty Yaniv

Anne Sherwood Pundyk: Beauty Out of Bounds at East End Arts

Featured Exhibition

A room with art on the wall

Description automatically generated — Beauty Out of Bounds, East End Arts 11 West Gallery Installation. Painting on the left: Moonset. Painting on the right: The Center Will Hold. Photo courtesy of the artist

Anne Sherwood Pundyk’s solo exhibition, Beauty Out of Bounds, features a vibrant selection of her color-intensive works, many on public display for the first time. Her large, unstretched paintings reveal layers of stained drop cloth canvas interspersed with geometric shapes, cascades of color, bold stitching, sharp lines, and imprinted grids of paint. Her smaller pieces on stitched paper reflect the experimental approach of her larger works. A series of photographs that obscure handwritten journal entries bridge visual art and literature, underscoring the artist’s dual identity as a painter and writer. At the heart of the exhibition is Pundyk’s artist’s book, The Garden, which integrates printed pages and narratives prominently along the gallery walls. Her artworks collectively navigate themes of trauma and forgiveness. “By setting aside received wisdom, I make room for curiosity, investigation, and especially vulnerability”, Pundyk asserts. The exhibition spans both locations of East End Arts Galleries in the Arts District on Main St., Riverhead, NY, and includes various events designed to expand the dialogue.

March 18, 2024March 18, 2024, by Art Spiel

Way finding: Caroline Burton at the New Jersey State Museum

In Dialogue

Installation view of *Caroline Burton: Way Finding* at the New Jersey State Museum (September 23, 2023 – March 31, 2024). Photo courtesy of Sarah Vogelman

The New Jersey State Museum, part of the NJ Department of State, has served the public for nearly 130 years, showcasing diverse collections in Archaeology & Ethnography, Cultural History, Fine Art, and Natural History. Assistant curator Sarah Vogelman dedicates herself to the Fine Art collection, focusing on its care, expansion, and exhibition. With over 12,000 works, the collection emphasizes American art and notably highlights New Jersey artists, positioning their contributions within the broader American art history context. Through the New Jersey Artist Series, featuring exhibitions like Caroline Burton: Way Finding, Vogelman aims to spotlight New Jersey’s vibrant contemporary art scene and foster local artist collaboration. By curating this series and organizing exhibitions that offer wider or even global art historical perspectives, she strives to convey that New Jersey’s art is a vital part of a broader cultural dialogue. “I want our visitors to see that art from New Jersey transcends our state’s borders,” says Vogelman.

March 11, 2024February 23, 2024, by Art Spiel

Hovey Brock-Daniella Dooling-Valerie Hegarty at Catskill Art Space

HOT AIR

A close-up of a carpet

Description automatically generated — Hovey Brock, *A Golden Spike for the Anthropocene,* 2020, 30” x 40”, acrylic media on panel

Hovey Brock was a member of the Catskill Art Society (CAS) before its rebranding as the Catskill Art Space. Originally a low-key regional arts center, the transformation began under the guidance of Executive Director Sally Wright. In October 2022, Wright inaugurated the new exhibition halls, featuring on-loan installations by Sol Lewitt and James Turrell, signaling CAS’s ambition to bring world-class arts programming to Livingston Manor. This initiative marked a significant milestone in the cultural revival sweeping the entire Catskill region, with CAS playing a pivotal role. “Since so much of my work is about the Catskills, I am thrilled to have this opportunity to show my pieces at CAS, especially in the company of fellow artists Daniella Dooling and Valerie Hegarty,” Brock says.

January 31, 2024May 12, 2024, by Saul Ostrow

Harriet Korman’s Brutal Realism

Opinion

a hallway with paintings on the wall — Photo credit: Fernando Sandoval/MW

In Harriet Korman’s exhibition titled Portraits of Squares, the squares in question are either nested within the framework of a grid or stand alone as discreet entities surrounded by blocks of color. Her palette, in the main, is made of secondary and tertiary colors, which for the most part, are applied in an opaque and unmodulated manner — her surfaces tend to be flat and dry. Korman uses color both as a formal element to reinforce her composition’s structure as well as spatially. As one moves around the gallery, there seems to be no logical progression or sense to the paintings’ variations. The canvases, all of the same dimensions, are rectangular and are hung on the horizontal at eye level; their sequencing refuses to surrender an associative, conceptual, or anecdotal narrative. What one is left with is the fact they all, in part, reference squares and that they are all relatively different in approach. Subsequently, it is hard to determine if the “portraits” represent systemic deviations on a singular theme or if each painting was individually intuited. Behind the reception desk hangs a painting from 1979 whose forms are organic, their edges blurred, and whose surface is mottled. This painting stands as a reminder that Korman works thematically, and the present paintings are an aspect of her broader investigation of abstract painting’s various idioms.

December 4, 2023December 24, 2023, by Amy Talluto

Amy Talluto Describes an Elisabeth Condon Painting – Dusk, 2023

A blue and brown abstract painting

Description automatically generated — Elisabeth Condon, *Dusk,* 2023, acrylic and mediums on linen, 30 x 21 inches

Amy Talluto’s reflections on a painting by Elisabeth Condon were initially presented in an interview with the artist in podcast episode 59 for Pep Talks for Artists. Elisabeth Condon is a frequent guest on the show, contributing to the series Elisabeth Condon Describes a Painting. In conjunction with Condon’s solo exhibition and participation in the Untitled fair, both with Emerson Dorsch Gallery in Miami,[LINK: https://emersondorsch.com/] Amy interviewed Elisabeth and described Condon’s Dusk, 2023, acrylic and mediums on linen, 30 x 21 inches, a painting included in her show. Dusk will be on view at the gallery from December 3, 2023, through February 3, 2024, in the exhibition Tempus Fugit.

December 1, 2023November 27, 2023, by Etty Yaniv

Elizabeth Gilfilen: Denouement at Yi Gallery

In Dialogue

*Unearth,* 2023, oil on canvas, 64 x 72 inches

Elizabeth Gilfilen’s debut solo show at YI Gallery presents oil paintings that exhibit a meticulous yet bold exploration of color and texture. Her strokes span from boldly assertive to gently nuanced, each adding to her work’s visual depth and dynamic feel. Eschewing neat conclusions, her paintings are presented as evolving works, with each layer suggesting new narratives in an unfolding journey. The synergy of color and form in her paintings creates a dynamic tableau, inviting viewers to interact with the canvas, drawing them into the active narrative of the art’s continuous unfolding.

October 23, 2023October 14, 2023, by Art Spiel

The Mirror Blue Night at Undercroft Gallery

Featured Project

The Mirror Blue Night originated from an idea artist and curator Patrick Neal had for a show called Dark Noir, referencing the character of the city in the evening hours. When Neal was later invited to curate at the Undercroft Gallery, this idea expanded to include nocturnes and night in general. The gallery is located beneath The Church of Heavenly Rest on Museum Mile, and in this context, Neal began to look for spiritual echoes, considering how evening and twilight hours evoke the afterlife, the cosmos, anonymity, peace, and fear. “I had in mind depictions of darkness but also considered night as a condition that occupies half of our days and half of our lives, with all the symbolic, psychological, and temporal associations that come with it.”

July 20, 2023July 19, 2023, by Art Spiel

Ashley Garret: Ambrosia at SEPTEMBER

Featured Artist

Ashley Garrett: Ambrosia, Garrett’s second solo show at SEPTEMBER in Kinderhook, NY, features a body of work she has made over three years—some evolved over years and others more quickly. Garrett has been working on large-scale 94 x 57-inch paintings on canvas since 2019. Garrett says that the weaving of brushstrokes creates a space that changes perspective between up and down, water and air. The gallery space also offers an experience of movement with sight lines through three distinct rooms. In the installation, small paintings on canvas can be seen from each corner of the rooms to the farthest corners of the gallery.

July 1, 2023October 6, 2024, by Art Spiel

Deanna Sirlin: Wavetable

Artist Profile

Deanna Sirlin, Wavetable, installation view at 211 East 43^rd Street, NYC, NY

Deanna Sirlin’s Wavetable, on view in the lobby of 211 East 43rd Street, New York, includes seven recent paintings, all 7 feet by 5 feet, arranged in a line that turns a corner. Produced between 2020 and 2023, at the height of the pandemic, the paintings in Wavetable offer an eye-popping meditation on connections. As the world went into lockdown and our interactions and connections with others were circumscribed, Sirlin explored interaction and connection through these paintings.