Abstract Painting

Eleanore Mikus @ Craig F. Starr
Hyperallergic

John Yau reviews Eleanore Mikus: Tablets and Related Works, 1960–69 at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York, on view through March 25, 2017. Yau rites: “[Eleanore Mikus] brought together nuance and structure, making them into a subtly captivating experience… she is clearly uninterested in the perfection we associate with the Minimalist aesthetic, and with artists […]

Ruth Pastine @ Brian Gross
Squarecylinder

David M. Roth reviews Ruth Pastine: Witness at Brian Gross Gallery, San Francisco, on view through February 25, 2017. Roth writes: “Ruth Pastine’s supersaturated color-field paintings unite two seemingly contradictory characteristics: sensuality and remoteness. How might that work? Smashingly well, as it turns out. The Ojai-based artist blends vertical bands of strong color into gradients […]

Sean Scully @ Timothy Taylor Gallery
Saturation Point

John Stephens reviews the recent exhibition Sean Scully: Horizon at Timothy Taylor Gallery, London. Stephens writes: “I’d say [Scully] owes his success over the decades since the 70s not only to his deft and confident handling of paint but also to his understanding, not just of modernist abstraction but of the history of Western painting. […]

Marjorie Welish: Some Differences
ARTnews

Barbara A. MacAdam reviews Marjorie Welish: Some Differences at Art 3, New York, on view through February 5, 2017. MacAdam writes: “What is most surprising in this gathering is the personal, physical quality of the works. They seem to mimic breathing, inhaling and exhaling between the vacant areas and the more expansive blue mounds. Sometimes there’s a […]

Emily Mason @ Ameringer McEnery Yohe
Hamptons Art Hub

Peter Malone reviews paintings by Emily Mason at Ameringer McEnery Yohe, New York, on view through February 7, 2017. Malone observes: “Though Mason’s palette is keyed to the higher pitches, it avoids the flash and punch embraced by much recent abstract painting. Apparently not interested in deadpan statements or the lure of eye-candy, she creates […]

John McLaughlin: The Marvelous Void
artcritical

Joan Boykoff Baron and Reuben M. Baron review two exhibitions: John McLaughlin Paintings: Total Abstraction at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through April 16) and John McLaughlin: Marvelous Void at Van Doren Waxter, New York (closed). The reviewers write: “[McLaughlin] sought a purer basis for abstraction in the Zen concept of the ‘marvelous […]

Dan Walsh @ Paula Cooper
Art Observed

D. Creahan reviews works by Dan Walsh at Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, on view through February 4, 2017. Crehan writes: “Artist Dan Walsh’s work draws on process as a mode of transcendence, working through canvases through a series of evolving forms and rule-based approaches to the canvas space. The artist … draws on repetitive, […]

Suzanne Blank Redstone: 1960s Portal Paintings
Art Agenda

Leigh Markopoulos reviews the recent exhibition Suzanne Blank Redstone: 1960s Portal Paintings at Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. Markopoulos writes: “Featuring primary-colored geometric forms and grids, [Redstone’s] compositions instantly evoke Piet Mondrian, at the same time hinting at a venerable tradition of European pre-war geometric abstraction of the sort practiced by Jean Hélion. While her experiments […]

Mark Rothko: Dark Palette
ARTnews

Alfred Mac Adam reviews the recent exhibition Mark Rothko: Dark Palette at Pace Gallery, New York Mac Adam observes: “The act of superimposing black on color ironically transforms the surface into a mirror that enables viewers to seek and lose themselves in the work. The paintings invite speculation, and speculation generates dynamic narrative, going “on […]

Carl Ostendarp: Interview
Artpulse

Craig Drennen interviews painter Carl Ostendarp whose work is on view at Elizabeth Dee Gallery, New York, through February 25, 2017. Ostendarp remarks: “Well there is secret stuff in the paintings! In addition to the images, there’s a crackpot math thing that I do. And there’s an idea about the ‘field’ that’s as much American […]

Ed Clark @ the Tilton Gallery
Hyperallergic

John Yau reviews Ed Clark: Paintings at the Tilton Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2017. Yau writes: “Clark’s approach is simple and straightforward, and he has not altered it much over the years. I don’t think he needs to. I think what needs to happen is to bring together in an exhibition […]

Etel Adnan @ the Institut du Monde Arabe
Flash Art

Martha Kirszenbaum reviews a recent exhibition of works by Etel Adnan at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris. Kirszenbaum concludes: “Throughout this intimate retrospective, Adnan’s voice, both feminist and pacifist, reveals itself through her interwoven influences, languages and techniques. She observes her itinerancy, from Smyrna to Beirut, and from Sausalito to Paris, with a generous […]

Ryan Nord Kitchen: Interview
Painting is Dead

Scott Robinson interviews painter Ryan Nord Kitchen. Kitchen remarks: “Paintings are these things that are consciously presented to a viewer. When you stand in front of a show, I think an indicator of its success is a compelling desire to contemplate why the artist decided to show you this particular group of objects. Painting has […]

Stanley Whitney: Interview
Modern Art Notes

Tyler Green talks to painter Stanley Whitney whose work is currently on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, through April 2, 2017. Whitney remarks: “… So I go to Egypt … I’m looking at the pyramids, I’m looking at the tombs, I’m looking at the frescoes on the wall, and then it […]

Marina Adams: Interview
Whitewall

Katy Donoghue interviews painter Marina Adams whose show Soft Power is on view at Salon 94 Bowery, New York, through February 22, 2016. Adams remarks: “I was at the Alhambra, I must have been in my twenties, in Grenada at the Moorish Palace. It’s all tiled. So I was not looking at abstract expressionist paintings, […]

Rezi van Lankveld: Interview
Studio International

Allie Biswas interviews painter Rezi van Lankveld whose exhibition Schelper is on view at Petzel Gallery, New York through February 25, 2017. Van Lankveld explains: “I pour paint to make a ‘happening’ in the painting, to make a line or block without touching it, so it can be pure, like a natural thing. Most important […]

Dan Ramirez @ Zolla/Lieberman
New City Art

Mark Pohlad reviews at Dan Ramirez: Alatheia at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, on view through February 4, 2017. Pohlad writes: “Ramirez’s art builds on stark contrasts—color against monotone, geometric versus rounded forms, metallic surfaces adjacent to wood—combined in fugal counterpoint. Recalling the paintings of Barnett Newman, one of his inspirations, Ramirez’s elegant forms are decidedly vertical. […]

Myron Stout’s Desire for the Unattainable
Hyperallergic

John Yau reviews a recent exhibition of works by Myron Stout at Craig F. Starr Gallery, New York. Yau writes that Stout “expresses neither angst nor impatience with his process. His work arises out of the paradoxical combination of paring everything down, while employing a process of patient accretion. He caressed his work into being. […]

Matthew Dibble: Useful Pressures
ArtSlant

Carol Heft writes about Matthew Dibble: Useful Pressures at First Street Gallery, New York, on view through January 28, 2017. Heft observes: “The materials themselves inspire an animated, personal vocabulary, informed by their intrinsic qualities and the great tradition of abstract expressionism, often with a figurative nod. The artist uses industrial paints and adhesives, staples, […]

Marina Adams @ Salon 94
Hyperallergic

John Yau reviews Marina Adams: Soft Power at Salon 94 Bowery, New York, on view through February 22, 2016. Yau observes: “The rounded edges of Adams’s biomorphic forms suggest that they are — as the exhibition’s title suggests — soft. While some of forms are interlocking or held in place by other forms, their grip […]