Paul Behnke visits the studio of artist Debra Ramsay. Ramsay says of her work: "My creative process develops around repetitive and serial systems. I’m caught up in subtle calculations and decisions of proportion and interrelationships. Once I develop the system for the specific project and determine the calculations, what remains is a form of meditation:
John Yau reviews the exhibition Paul Feeley: 1957 -1962 at Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, on view through October 12, 2013. Yau writes: "By shifting the focus to 1957–’62 — the latter being the year that Feeley began making the emblematic abstractions that seemed to have secured his reputation — we learn that the oeuvre
Armand Dupuy writes about the work of painter Julie Torres. Dupuy notes: "It might seem strange, but discovering the artwork of Julie Torres, has led me to sense a resurgence of those feelings I'd first had when seeing Degas' L'étoile. I've relocated that sense of wonder, that sense of discrete shock, of eyes flung wide
Larry Groff interviews painter Jeffrey Reed whose work is on view at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia through September 28, 2013. Discussing working outdoors in rapidly changing weather conditions, Reed comments: "I do like being outside when the light and weather are changing. I have lost some paintings certainly, but I have also saved some paintings
Christopher Joy and Zachary Keeting visit the studio of painter Stephen Maine. Discussing his relationship to the image in his paintings, Maine comments: "My effort is to try to control the contact of the material to the surface of the panel or the canvas in such a way the reading of it remains very open."
Tyler Green interviews artist Dorothea Rockburne about her work on the occasion of the exhibition Dorothea Rockburne: Drawing Which Makes Itself at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, on view from September 21, 2013 - January 20, 2014. Asked about her folded drawings, Rockburne comments: "I studied topology, that was my study in math...
Scott Indrisek interviews painter Jack Whitten on the occasion of Whitten's exhibition at Alexander Gray Associates, New York, on view through October 12, 2013. Discussing the acrylic collage technique in his recent paintings, Whitten comments: "Collage has been sort of the keystone of modernist thought. With Picasso, with Matisse. What I have done is remove
Barbara Morris reviews the recent exhibition Karla Wozniak: This Weather Is Cosmic at Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco. Morris writes that Wozniak's "colorful reflections on the landscape resonate with an underlying sense of logic. As with her earlier landscape-based work, even more focused on roadside signage and motels, the imagery of these paintings is derived
Tulsa Kinney visits the temporary studio of Lari Pittman to view Pittman's three new 30 foot paintings to be exhibited at Regen Projects, Los Angeles from November 9 - Decemeber 21, 2013. Kinney writes: "The three paintings start with a black base and all have a repeated textile pattern, much like a tapestry rug. Huge
Simon Carter interviews painter Matthew Krishanu about his recent work. Matthew Krishanu comments: "I quite like [the]t idea of a box of memories, because I think in a way, putting together a solo show is about doing that – you’re sort of curating a set of memories that then have a dialogue with each other.
R. H. Quaytman interviews painter Amy Sillman whose exhibition Amy Sillman: one lump or two will be on view at the ICA Boston from October 3, 2013 - January 5, 2014. In the interview, Quaytman and Sillman discuss painting's relationship to technology. Quaytman comments: "Paintings now tend to be read as super-flat computer images and
Andy Parkinson blogs about the recent one day exhibition Now You See It Now You Don't curated by painter Karl Bielik. Parkinson writes that "Over the last six years 162 different artists have shown over 300 pieces of work in this now transformed, former wasteland. Exposed to the elements the works have shifted, faded, broken,
On the occasion of the exhibition Simon Hantaï at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (through September 2, 2013), Gwenaël Kerlidou considers Hantaï's work in the context of his decision in 1983 to "withdraw from the art scene and stop exhibiting his work, if not to stop painting altogether. He would not show again until 1998, a
Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Joanne Mattera: Chromatic Geometries at Arden Galery, Boston, on view through September 30, 2013. Butler writes: "In 'Chromatic Geometries,' ... Mattera has decisively moved away from the layered, atmospheric approach of earlier 'Silk Road' and 'Vicolo' series to explore, with her customary virtuosity, the possibilities of figure-ground relationships and
Jed Perl writes about the problems facing contemporary painters and finds "promising directions that painters might further explore" in Richard Diebenkorn’s work from the 1950s and 1960s, currently on view in the exhibtion Richard Diebenkorn, The Berkeley Years 1953-1966 at the M.H. De Young Museum, San Francisco through September 29, 2013. Perl examines "the painter's
James Kalm visits the exhibition Chuck Webster: Blessing at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through October 12, 2013. Kalm notes: "These impressive pieces bare testament to a new freedom and casual approach to materials, color and surface. Many of the works were inspired by a recent visit to the Rothko Chapel in Texas."
Altoon Sultan blogs about trompe l'oeil painting, citing various examples of the genre from art history. Sultan writes that she was "thinking about the modernist credo of 'the integrity of the picture plane,' and why it wasn't of importance to me; matter of fact, I take a kind of glee in illusionism, in the sense
Karla Wozniak interviews painter Mike Cloud about his work. Asked about "painting as an expanded, flexible discipline that has the power to absorb other media," Cloud responds: "Painting is the contemplation of a skin, a painted film. Whether a painting is on a cave wall, canvas or wood, you can always conceptually separate a painting
Lilly Lampe compares two exhibitions of contemporary painting: Painters Panting, recently on view at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and Painter Painter at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, on view through September 27, 2013. Lampe concludes: "These exhibitions and their ilk call attention to the insecurities of painting by their very nature, but in their
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Pat de Groot about her work and career. De Groot comments: "I work with what I see. That’s what there was to do. They are about creating the feeling you get from the thing — from what it is out there. Even though the paintings are all done in the studio,