Joan Waltemath reviews the recent exhibition Sonia Almeida: The Angle of the Sun's Rays at Simone Subal Gallery, New York. Considering Almeida's painting Diagonal Pathway, Waltemath writes: "each time I see it, it gets better. It's constructed in layers that are separate, like in a print, but which seamlessly open up a void with contours
An essay by painter and writer Dmitry Samarov about the influence of place on an artist's work. Samarov writes: "If you're a painter who's primarily inspired by your physical surroundings, it takes some time for a new place to soak into your consciousness in that way that's required to make pictures. Meanwhile, everywhere I turn
Sharon Butler reports on painting in Nashville. She blogs images from many studio visits she conducted on her trip. The post includes views of studios from painters including Lain York, Jodi Hays, Kaaren Hirschowitz Engel, Richard Heinsohn, and Mary Addison Hackett.
Hearne Pardee reviews the exhibition Catherine Lee: Quanta at Galerie Lelong, New York, on view through April 28, 2012. Pardee writes: "Composed on pencil-drawn grids, the paintings are hand crafted in layers of pigment, applied square by square and stroke by stroke. The grid provides a foil for the sensually inflected material surfaces. What at
D Richmond looks at the pictorial achievements of Sigmar Polke. Dicussing Polke's "play between illusionism and reality," in the painting Negative Value II, Mizar, 1982, Richmond writes: "there is no recognizable imagery and the color in itself is ambiguous. What gesture that exists, if one could call it that, is not in the traditional painterly
Frank Hobbs blogs a selection of thoughts on painting by Alan Feltus. On painting's function in society Feltus writes: "I think art wants to be something people can turn to for a kind of meaning in their lives, or for a calm place within the turbulance of our modern world. Art doesn't have to explain
John Yau reflects on the significant achievements of painter Sylvia Plimack-Mangold. Yau writes: "it seems to me that Plimack-Mangold's early investigations of space should be credited with initiating a dialogue in opposition to Frank Stella's stripe paintings, which squeezed space out of paintings altogether, and the flat, grid-like floor sculptures that Carl Andre began after
Steven Alexander visits the exhibition Kazimira Rachfal: The Shiva Cycle at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, New York, on view through April 22, 2012. Alexander writes that Rachfal's works are "spare and deeply evocative paintings... Employing an iconic motif -- a rectangle with a slightly curved angular top, contained in varying ratios by a solid field and
James Panero reviews the biography Thomas Hart Benton: A Life by Justin Wolff "a keen critical recuperation, if not a defibrillation, of this unique American artist." Panero notes that "Wolff is at his best exploring the philosophy behind the rise of Benton's new signature style, which he locates in the pragmatism of John Dewey. Benton
Alex Turnbull and Pete Stern post an excerpt from their documentary Beyond Time: William Turnbull. In the clip painter and sculptor William Turnbull "discusses the relation his experiences as a pilot during World War II had on the development of his art, and specifically his attitude to abstraction. More clips are available on the William
Marina Vaizey reviews the exhibition Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude at the National Gallery, London, on view through June 5, 2012. Vaizey notes that Turner "took from Claude the vastness of landscape, its beauty and importance, but perhaps above all, as the exhibition title suggests, the overwhelming inspiration was a Claudian illumination, the
Grégory Picard reviews the Berthe Morisot Retrospective at the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, on view through July 1, 2012. Picard writes that this is "the first large-scale Morisot retrospective since 1941... restores Morisot to a central position in art history and in the Impressionist movement, which is all too often limited to Monet, Degas, Renoir,
Jennifer Samet interviews painter Elena Sisto about her work. Regarding the figures in her paintings Sisto notes that "the characters come out of the paint, the light, and the mood of the light... I observe people carefully; I stare at people on the subway more than I maybe should, and I draw from life. The
Mario Naves blogs about the work of Douglas Florian on the occasion of Florian's exhibition Dawn Thieves at BravinLee Programs, New York, on view through May 5, 2012. Naves writes that "Florian creates heraldic images that simultaneously bring to mind the natural world, the Hebrew alphabet, Indian miniatures, graffiti and astronomical diagrams. Made with gouache
Piri Halasz reviews Hans Hofmann: Art Like Life is Real at Ameringer-McEnery-Yohe, New York on view through April 21, 2012. Halasz notes "two surprises in the current selection, two aspects of Hofmann's art that I'd never fully appreciated before. The first was his use of thin, straight lines... The second thing I'd never responded to
John Seed reviews the exhibition Legacy in Continuum: Bay Area Figuration at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, on view through May 27, 2012. Seed notes that "the show pairs the work of some early Bay Area notables -- Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, William 'Theophilius' Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira and Paul Wonner -- with a
Whitney Ranson reviews an exhibition of paintings by Laurel Sucsy entitled Chasing the Rabbit at Clough-Hanson Gallery, Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, on view through March 30, 2012. Ranson writes: "At the forefront of the numerous juxtapositions that Sucsy creates in her paintings is the contrast between the recognizable and the abstracted. Sucsy's work becomes reminiscent
Rick Briggs reviews the exhibition Lauren Luloff: Recent Small Works at Horton Gallery, New York, on view through March 31, 2012. Briggs writes that the"risky openness of process makes Luloff like the proverbial tight rope walker working without a net, or, rather, perhaps the 'net' in this case, is her painting ground which happens to
Deven Golden reviews an exhibition of new paintings by Ellen Berkenblit at Anton Kern Gallery, New York, on view through March 31, 2012. Golden writes that in Birkenblit's recent paintings "the colors continually take precedent and pull the viewer's eye contrary to representational logic. The dichotomy created between figuration and abstraction simply refuses to coalesce,
Hylan Booker blogs about the exhibition Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) through April 22, 2012. Booker writes that Kelly's work is "about space - the stuff in between the drawn lines, the transient shadows, the reflections thrown on the floor - the what's inside