Abstraction
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, […]
Matisse/Diebenkorn in Baltimore
ARTnews
Phyllis Tuchman reviews Matisse/Diebenkorn at the Baltimore Museum of Art, on view through January 29, 2017. Tuchman asserts: “Astonishingly, Diebenkorn’s paintings in Baltimore are never overshadowed, as you might expect, by Matisse’s masterpieces. The American … doesn’t just hold his own: he actually upstages Matisse… Like Matisse, he’s become the type of artist we expect to […]
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 […]
Luchita Hurtado @ Park View Gallery
LA Times
Christopher Knight reviews works by Luchita Hurtado recently on view at Park View Gallery, Los Angeles. Knight writes: “[Hurtado’s] drawings’ loosely Surrealist forms recall dense pictographs from a variety of cultures, ancient and modern. Among them are prehistoric cave paintings, Northwest and Southwest tribal art, pre-Columbian reliefs and the abstract paintings and sculptures of Chinese-Afro-Cuban […]
Louise Belcourt @ Locks Gallery
The Artblog
Rachel Sitkin reviews paintings by Louise Belcourt at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, on view through February 4, 2017. Sitkin writes: “Blocky shapes pile upwards from the horizon line at the bottom edge of each canvas and coalesce into abstracted vistas. Belcourt utilizes an organic approach to perspective and sophisticated shifts in color to render depth, space, […]
Allison Miller @ The Pit
Artillery
Kathryn Poindexter reviews Allison Miller: Screen Jaw Door Arch Prism Corner Bed recently on view at The Pit, Glendale, CA. Poindexter begins: “Allison Miller’s oeuvre is firmly and unequivocally rooted in the painting tradition, and yet is built upon a conviction, evident in her output over the past decade or so, to explore every inch […]
Kate Liebman: Interview
Two Coats of Paint
Debbi Kenote interviews painter Kate Liebman. Liebman remarks: “Every decision I make I want there to be a formal reason and another level of meaning, so it works on multiple layers… When I see the paintings, I can’t help but see them in reference to the original image, but the viewer doesn’t necessarily have that. […]
Caragh Thuring: Interview
Studio International
Alexander Glover interviews painter Caragh Thuring whose work is on view at Thomas Dane Gallery, London,through January 21, 2017. In the introduction Glover notes: “Although Thuring’s work has become synonymous with painting directly on to unprimed linen, this exhibition marks a turning point, in which the artist has collaborated with weavers from Suffolk and Belgium. […]
Diana Copperwhite: Signal to Noise
Hyperallergic
Stephen Maine reviews Diana Copperwhite: Depend on the Morning Sun at 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel,New York, on view through January 28, 2017. Maine writes: “Copperwhite has hit upon a crazily recognizable way of applying paint that both updates (somewhat tongue-in-cheekily) the concept of the “autographic mark” so prized by the analysts of Abstract Expressionism, and […]
Carmen Herrera: Art Without Lies
New York Review of Books
Claire Messud reviews Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight recently on view at the Whitney Museum, New York. Messud writes: “From the first, Herrera deployed line and color with an energy intensified by her rigor. A City (1948), with its blocks of lemon yellow, black, and cobalt blue, foreshadows a palate that recurred in later series. […]
Pat Steir @ Dominique Lévy
Art Observed
S. Ozer reviews paintings by Pat Steir at Dominique Lévy Gallery, London, on view through January 28, 2017. Ozer writes: “Steir creates these very physical images by pinning an un-stretched canvas on the wall, and while standing on a ladder pushes the paint across the canvas horizontally. The weight of the colors rush down, and […]
Agnes Martin @ the Guggenheim Museum
Too Much Art
Mario Naves reviews the Agnes Martin retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view through January 11, 2017. Naves writes: “After flirting with biomorphism, Martin settled into her signature groove: patterning—typically, grids or horizontal stripes—laid out with underplayed concision. The color palette, from the get-go, is limited. Grays and off-whites predominate, so much so that […]
George Negroponte @ Anita Rogers
Steven Alexander Journal
Eric Holzman writes about the work of George Negroponte whose exhibition Gravel Road is on view at Anita Rogers Gallery, New York, through January 7, 2017. Holzman observes: “In his current show … Negroponte uses shaped bits and pieces of cardboard as his support. The work feels softer than the previous body of work as the […]
Fabienne Verdier: Interview
Studio International
Anna McNay interviews painter Fabienne Verdier whose exhibition Rhythms and Reflections is on view at Waddington Custot, London through February 4, 2017. Verdier remarks: “All my work is a kind of meditation. When I create a background for a work, I do so layer after layer. I first try to create a kind of vibration. Then […]
Norman Lewis: Painting Black and Blue
New City Art
Stephen F. Eisenman reviews Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis at the Chicago Cultural Center, on view through January 8, 2017. Eisenman writes: “[Lewis’] paintings are often blue, and they reference the exhilaration and despair of being black in America. Friend and contemporary of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and the rest, he never attained comparable […]
9 Women and Abstraction @ Zürcher Gallery
Hyperallergic
Thomas Micchelli reviews 1970’s: 9 Women and Abstraction at Zürcher Gallery, New York, on view through December 22, 2016. The show features works by: Lula Blocton, Regina Bogat, Samia Halaby, Hermine Ford, June Leaf, Lizbeth Marano, Kazuko Miyamoto, Lynn Umlauf, and Merrill Wagner. Micchelli writes: “In her highly informative essay on the exhibition’s website, curator […]
Transcending Despair: Rothko, Herrera, Martin
Tamar Zinn
Tamar Zinn finds comfort from current events in three abstract painting exhibitions: Mark Rothko: Dark Palette at Pace Gallery, New York (through January 7), Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight at the Whitney Museum (through January 9), and Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim Museum (through January 11). Zinn writes: “It is through the arts, as well […]
Betty Parsons & Abstract Expressionism
Patterns That Connect
Andy Parkinson considers the paintings of Betty Parsons. Parkinson writes: “In her paintings Parsons borrows more from her AbEx contemporaries, but without the all-important scale, Clyfford Still in miniature, almost. Parsons also looks back to earlier European modernist works, those of Paul Klee for example, not only in the modest sized of her canvases but […]
Pat Steir @ Dominique Lévy
Studio International
Matthew Rudman reviews works by Pat Steir at Dominique Lévy Gallery, London, on view through January 28, 2017. Rudman writes: “Simple enough at first glance, these paintings reward close observation: secondary colours emerge in the chaos, cracks reveal layers beneath, near-transparent layers of oil paint glint in the changing light. As Steir told Interview magazine, this […]
Allison Miller: Accidentally On Purpose
Painting Smoking Eating
Jason Ramos reviews Allison Miller: Screen Jaw Door Arch Prism Corner Bed at The Pit, Glendale, CA, on view through December 12, 2016. Ramos writes: “Splotches, squiggles, stripes, deckles. The namable things in Allison Miller’s paintings exist just over and under the threshold of identifiable, representational imagery. Each of the decisions documented on her canvases […]