gestural abstraction

November 30, 2024December 9, 2024, by Anna Shukeylo

Silence Breaking: Gail Winbury at Kean University

Silence Breaking is a hidden gem of a show featuring abstract paintings by Gail Winbury at the Carl and Helen Burger Gallery on Kean University’s idyllic, park-like campus in Union, NJ. A New Jersey native, Gail Winbury’s oil paintings depict interpretations of various poems and personal stories that manifest into abstractions with colliding shapes and colors. Her use of gestural abstraction and expressionist lines reflect her interest in the elicitation of psychological responses via painting. Most of the work in the gallery is in large square format, dominated by celadon or mint blue green – a color frequently ranked among the calmest colors. The Field of Green series, which is most of the show, is a departure for the artist, whose previous series had much more aggressive lines and brighter shapes, which more comfortably rested into a traditional rectangular surface dimension. The compositional choices in this body of work are deliberate and minimal, reflecting a more meditative feel full of cooler tones and calmer transitions.

October 15, 2024October 14, 2024, by Chunbum Park

Contours and Strokes: Between Traditional and Contemporary Art Forms

Mika Kanemura performing at the gallery. calligrapher: Komei

When one looks at Franz Kline’s Abstract Expressionist paintings involving Gestural Abstraction, they cannot help but read a Chinese or Japanese character in calligraphic form. In fact, a relationship can be established between Kline’s “abstract” lines and marks from the calligraphic strokes of Sumi ink made by the masters of the traditional art form—Japanese calligraphy.

June 1, 2022December 30, 2022, by Saul Ostrow

Shirley Jaffe: An American Woman in Paris at the Pompidou Center

A room with art on the wall

Description automatically generated with low confidence — Shirley Jaffe, installation view, Pompidou Center, photo courtesy of Helene Mauri

It might be said for the most part, given the dominant ideology of Modernism, Shirley Jaffe has been overlooked for the standard reasons—her work was out of step with the times, it was derivative of Henri Matisse and Stuart Davis, it was too French, or too American—all according to who you speak with. Yet the gorilla in the room is she was an American woman of the post-war generation who had stayed on after almost everyone had gone home, who sought to get a foothold in the male dominated Parisian art world. Despite this, she persisted and gained respect and support among multi-generations of artists. As such she developed a reputation as an artists’ artist, yet despite her boosters and the fact that she is now being acknowledged with a retrospective exhibition at the Pompidou, Jaffe remains one of the best kept secrets of post-War abstract painting in France and remains unacknowledged in the States.