Contemporary Art and Culture
Painter Susan Cohen began her artistic journey by depicting the interiors of the places she lived, drawn to the emotional resonance of light and shadow. While that early intensity has softened over time, her fascination with light remains the core of her practice — animating her still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes, and close-up studies of foliage.
Continue reading “Susan Cohen – Engrossed in Egg Tempera”
Anna Gregor often remarks, half in jest, that she wishes she were a poet. Poems, to her, come closest to immateriality; they exist in the mind and can be accessed anytime. In contrast, a painting is a unique object that must be seen in person, confined by paint, the artist’s technique, and the viewer’s presence. Gregor, a painter in New York City currently pursuing her MFA at Hunter, examines the divide between body and mind, material and immaterial, in her art. She sees a painting as having a dual nature: a physical object of paint sharing space with the viewer and an immaterial idea formed in the viewer’s mind. This mirrors the human condition, where body and mind coexist. Gregor says she often feels trapped by her physical form and its social labels—gender, age, race, and ability. Yet, she recognizes that her body is essential for her consciousness. For Gregor, making a painting is a confrontation with matter, a commitment to the material world while striving to go beyond its limits. Viewing a painting involves a similar struggle to find meaning in the artist’s creation. “ Without the physical painting, there is no idea. But without the idea, the painting is just inert matter,” she says. This intricate relationship is central to her solo show, Double Space, at D. D. D. D.
Continue reading “Anna Gregor: Double Space at D. D. D. D.”
10989 Dunlop Road features Peter Gynd’s recent oil paintings, inspired by the tranquil garden of his mother’s home in kwekwenis (Lang Bay), British Columbia. This series captures the shifting essence of cedar and fir trees that stand at the garden’s entrance, embodying themes of rebirth and spiritual renewal. Each painting serves as a reflection of Gynd’s connection to this place of refuge during a pivotal time.
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In her paintings CT based painter Polly Shindler takes a close look at lived-in spaces – interiors with furniture of different periods, textiles with colorful patterns, flooring with different textures. Here spaces are typically void of people and at the same time breath with a sense of human occupancy.
Continue reading “Polly Shindler: Place on Material”TSA & Transmitter, The New York Studio School
TSA & Transmitter
It is often the case that the immediate juxtaposition of aesthetically kindred galleries TSA and Transmitter allows, maybe accidentally encourages visitors to make observations about concurrent exhibitions with relation to one another. I’m not sure the curators at the respective spaces are always keen on hearing such thoughts – especially from me, since over the years they’ve likely tired of knowing that I’ll always be looking for something – but there are times when the formal or conceptual fluidities or contrasts between shows are so striking that commentary of the sort proves simply irresistible. Continue reading “Nota Bene with @postuccio [ix]”