February 2012
14 posts
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HEDONISM IS BACK THANK GOD
Based on 3 shows in New York right now- Allison Miller, Nolan Hendrickson, and the subject of this post, Terry Winters- I feel entitled to make the pronouncement: HEDONISM IN PAINTING IS BACK. Let there be color, sensuous surfaces, and entrancing patterns. Terry Winters is showing at Matthew Marks Gallery until April 14.
Tesselation Figures (7), 2011, Oil on Linen, 80 x 76 inches
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Nolan Hendrickson 'New New Face'
At Ramiken Crucible in New York, Nolan Hendrickson paints large-scale acrylic canvases populated by figures in exercise-wear. The New Yorker writes that “the energy here is so infectious that one may be forgiven for wanting to cheer.”
New New Face, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 78 X 48 inches
Placeholder Eyes, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches
For more, check out Whitney...
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Stranger than anything we could possibly invent
Courtesy of Ernst Haeckel, wonderfully delicate drawings of the weird forms that lurk in nature. Makes me wonder, as an abstract painter, why I bother trying to invent imagery when the strangest, most magical stuff already exists? Some of it yet to be discovered? Thanks to Nicholas Johnson for the tip-off.
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Wil Murray, World Dominator
Wil Murray, born in Calgary, once of Montreal, now of Berlin (sometimes)….is having a show in his adopted city at Sur la Montagne Gallery.
Murray, in a field of flowers, blowing us a kiss. How sweet! Murray is also known for receiving an honorable mention in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition, for his painting “Sexe Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac.“ If only there had...
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Sean Montgomery, Fine Artist, at Laroche / Joncas
The last time I posted about Sean Montgomery, he was painting small scale reproductions of wood grain, flannel, beer labels, and meat. Elements that added up to a pastiche of Canadian manhood, or more broadly, rural masculinity. For some reason, Japanese bloggers loved them. He has a show coming up at Laroche / Joncas titled “Avant Garage.” Cheeky as all get out. The opening is...
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Allison Miller in New York
Ugh I’ve been posting so much about NY lately. But when I stumbled upon this show, I just had to write about it. I posted about Allison Miller sometime in January, after coming across her work in Bob Nickas’ tome ‘Painting Abstraction’. Her work is eccentric, surreal, and magical. She did her MFA at UCLA, and has shown widely on the west coast, but this is her first...
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Provisional Painting: To Rest Lightly On the Earth
A lot of text being thrown around on the internet re: Provisional Painting. Thanks to Two Coats for these links:
Part 1 of Raphael Rubinstein’s article on Provisional Painting in Art in America
Part 2
Sergej Jensen, Scary Eyes 4, 2011, stretched and sewn cotton
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Julia Dault and the New Museum Triennial
Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based Julia Dault is to be included in the New Museum’s Triennial, titled ‘the Ungovernables.’ She paints on unusual supports, including vinyl and pleather, and dances between painting and sculpture. The whole look is very sleek indeed.
Bunga Bunga, 2011, oil on costume pleather
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Untitled (Mega Brush), 2011, oil on canvas
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Marianne Hallseth
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check out her website
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The bright and wild thing, the only thing
Jerry Saltz exalts
Excerpts from her book of poems, Coming to That
The Dorothea Tanning Foundation
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Mike Kelley: More love hours than can ever be...
Interview, 1992
Jerry Saltz Exalts
January 2012
14 posts
2 tags
Jaynus O'Donnell: 'Look Up Look Down'
Monastiraki, Montreal’s favorite curiosity shop / art space, is showing work by Jaynus O’Donnell for the month of February. “Her practice uses collage, painting, and installation to examine representations of discovery, exploration and the na…tural world. She regularly works with found paper materials including textbooks, field guides, posters, maps, and...
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Sunday Links
John Yau writes a thoughtful review of David Goerk and Martha Clippinger for Hyperallergic
At Two Coats of Paint, Sharon Butler stumbles across an old interview with Adolf Gottlieb from 1966 in which he laments the end of the underground
Reid Singer of Art Fag City writes about the Language of Less, currently on view at the Chicago MCA
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Joyce Pensato at Friedrich Petzel
Batman, 2012, Enamel on Linen
New York: Joyce Pensato, ‘Batman Returns’, at Friedrich Petzel Gallery. From the gallery write-up:
“Alongside Pensato’s Batman motif will be paintings and drawings incorporating her familiar cartoon imagery of clowns, Homer Simpson, Groucho Marx, Mickey Mouse, and a character the artist refers to as “The Juicer.” Furthermore, she will...
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TORONTO: Harold Klunder 'Black Sun' at Clint...
Harold Klunder spends years on a painting. He’s the real deal- one of Canada’s visionaries. Go see this show!!!!! The opening is January 26. Clint Roenisch Gallery.
There he is in a kraftwerk tshirt.
One of his paintings (apologies, undated…)
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Monika Grzymala
Monika Grzymala is a Polish born artist, now based in Germany, who makes insane installations of out tape.
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Thanks to Contemporary Drawing Salon for the images, and to Michelle Furlong for the tip-off.
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Drawings by Robert Hardgrave
Wowzers. Came across these thanks to Booooooom!
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Giordanne Salley
I was just introduced to the work of Giordanne Salley through a blog post by a friend of mine, Austin Furtak-Cole. If you haven’t checked out his blog yet, I highly recommend you do. I find Giordanne’s work really engaging, an interesting mix of narrative, figuration, abstraction, and patterning.
Evening Bath, oil on canvas, 2009
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Front Porch, oil on canvas, 2011
Her...
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Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline part 2
I attended a slide presentation by Kaktins-Gorsline at Concordia this week, and I thought I’d share my notes from the talk since it gave me some food for thought. Topics covered: transitioning from representation to abstraction, and the limitations of those terms; the fragmented human subject; his relationship to Modernism; the idea of painting as performance; and the role of chance and...
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Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline: 'Nervous Lattice'
Krisjanis Kaktins-Gorsline’s show ‘Nervous Lattice’ is opening this Thursday the 19th at Battat Contemporary. I’m very, very excited to see his work in person.
Festoon, 2010, oil on canvas
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Mellon, 2010, oil on canvas
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Mouette, 2010, oil on canvas
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Fat Saturday
Exactly one million openings going on in Montreal this Saturday. Winter gallery season is upon us! It would be a sin to miss these two shows in particular.
Marigold Santos and Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo are in a show together at the MAI, curated by Zoe Chan. The opening is from 3-5 and includes a TOUR.
Marigold Santos
Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo
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Galerie Laroche / Joncas, in the...
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Xylor Jane's Hand Painted Mathematics
So Long
structured on a 16 sided polygon that squares itself on the edge
8X16X32 it has a stutter that allows the seven hues to be in order (on the vertical and horizontal) in both directions
it has 4096 strokes facing out
Strokes radiate from skewed center, growing larger.
Black rainbow waves an Infinite goodbye
Ruin
The strokes face either in or out, changing with each year along...
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hot year for Jessica Groome
In 2011, Jessica Groome graduated with her MFA from Guelph, was a semi-finalist in RBC’s painting competition, and won the Joseph Plaskett award. Daaaaaamn girl. Her work is undeniably elegant.
Studio, August 2011
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Untitled, (two through), oil on panel, 2011
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Untitled (collage), acrylic and paper, 2010
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Untitled, (orange), oil on panel, 2011
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happy new year now get your sorry ass together
the 10 best new New Year’s resolution artworks
Edgar Degas, L’Absinthe, 1873
December 2011
11 posts
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more poured paint, this time from Quebec
On the theme of Helen Frankenthaler and poured paint- the work of Francois Lacasse, a Quebecois painter.
Grandes Pulsions VII, 2008, acrylic and ink on canvas
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Compilation XIV, 2011, oil on canvas
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R.I.P Helen
The Guardian’s Obit
Jerry Saltz’s two cents
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Kai Althoff and the Whitney Biennial
The list of artists for the 2012 Biennial is now officially out. One of them is the German painter Kai Althoff, based in Cologne, whose work remains a puzzle to me but one that I am content to chew on. His work is difficult to categorize because it’s partly abstract and partly figurative, part sculpture and part painting. Images from his 2011 show at the Gladstone Gallery below:
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Scott Bertram
Scott Bertram, Subject to Change 2, acrylic on canvas, 2010
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Scott Bertram, Fall 2, acrylic on canvas, 2010
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Franklin Evans
timecompressionmachine, 2010, acrylic, painted tape, tape, thread, and watercolor on paper on wall
timecompressionmachine (detail), 2010, same materials as above
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Allison Miller's painted line
Just discovered the work of Allison Miller, an L.A based artist, and am thoroughly seduced by the way she uses the painted line to build her compositions.
Gold Band, 2007
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untitled, 2007
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two circles, 2007
From an interview with Allison Miller in ArtSlant:
“The plants I have and see when I’m walking around are a huge influence. There is an asymmetry to the point of...
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postcript from the press release for '...'
“Lest we find this press release too self-consciously “clever”, let me reaffirm that all these artists are crucially interested in being a part of the traditions of abstract painting, while turning the perhaps misapplied seriousness of its legacy on its head. They all seek a way of making a sincere and poignant abstract expression of feelings and ideas, but use various methods of...
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Sexy grayscale at the Hole, NYC
Four abstract painters will be featured at the Hole, from December 16 to January 28, 2012. The show is in fact called “…”. The press release explains:
“Dot Dot Dot is a group exhibition exploring new trends in abstraction. The artists featured all explore a material-driven or process-based approach to abstract painting often with a strong dose of humour or the...
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Thomas Scheibitz
Essay, 2008
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Speicher, 2010
Click here to see more
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November 2011
13 posts
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Juan Uslé
Lately I’ve been obsessed with stripes, so it was great to come across Juan Uslé’s work. He’s a master of the stripe.
Juan Uslé, Sin Desenlace, 2007, vinyl, dispersion, and dry pigment on canvas
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Juan Uslé, Miron, 2006-2007, vinyl, dispersion, and dry pigment on canvas
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Elizabeth McIntosh
Elizabeth McIntosh pillages the modernist abstract tradition for compositional ideas, and then goes all postmodern on their asses. Or, much more elegantly:
“For the past 17 years McIntosh has explored abstraction beyond the conventions established by Modernist abstract painting. She is not interested in exercises in tastefully resolving individual compositions but in unfolding the...
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Von Heyl and Nozkowski
Here I am at the Vermont Studio Centre, treated to three full meals a day and as much studio time as I can handle. It’s the lap of luxury. So far nine straight days of making and looking at paintings. It’s a little overwhelming- I might be going slightly bonkers. But my brain is fizzing with images so i thought I’d share some of what I’m looking at.
Charlene Von...
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Expozine's 10th Anniversary, La Centrale Panel...
Lovers of ink and paper, Expozine is coming up and it’s also the 10th anniversary, so….shit’s gonna go down. Sadly I’ll be in Vermont, but if I was in Montreal, I would definitely make it to the panel discussion happening at La Centrale this Sunday. The topic: women and silkscreening. From the press release: “On the occasion of Expozine’s 10th anniversary, La...
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Jean-Philippe Harvey "these things take time"
TODAY: an opening at Galerie Laroche/Joncas for the show “these things take time” by Jean-Philippe Harvey.
untitled, oil on canvas, 2011
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From the press release by David Cantin:
“Painting is a fiction that the artist continuously renews. Can an artist become many painters at once? Paintings start in the studio, with what the artist chooses to leave behind...
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Wanda Koop "No News" at Galerie Division
For those of you who missed Wanda Koop’s show at the National Gallery in Ottawa, you have a reprieve. Her show “No News” is opening at Galerie Division tomorrow, Saturday the 19th, from 3pm to 5pm.
“friendly fire”, acrylic on canvas, 2011
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“Tornado Alley”, acrylic on canvas, 2011
The show will run from Nov.19 until Dec.23.
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New video by Allison Schulnik! →
claymation, clowns, witches, blobs morphing into other blobs, a weird white world and a soft sad song