Ian Whitmore at G Fine Art

by Lauren Rice

Last spring, I entered unannounced into G Fine Art and requested a private viewing of paintings by Ian Whitmore. I remember being disappointed that I was only able to see a few small paintings. I also recall being dissatisfied with the (dare I say) quality of Whitmore’s work in person after being impressed by several reproductions online. I am happy to say that I was able to attend an opening of Whitmore’s current solo show Honi soit qui mal y pense at G Fine Art in September. This not only gave me to opportunity to drink some wine while reviewing the works, but also to see a greater number of Whitmore’s paintings.
Although people watching at the crowded opening was almost as intriguing (and as disparate!) as the paintings on view, I was able to squeeze my way through the crowd to see the show. One painting caught my eye immediately--Chase, a rainbowy oil on canvas. This work was perhaps the most similar in style to the older work that I had seen online because it combined gestural abstraction with hidden figurative elements. However it was of even greater interest to me than his previous work. Despite the painting’s obvious Cecily Brown influence, it was much cleverer than Whitmore’s older work. Again, I must refer to my review last semester where I wondered if Whitmore was challenging his own capabilities as an artist. This sneaky painting made me feel as though he was starting to. Although the painting utilizes trendy saccharine colors (and I was not clear to what end), I felt that the artist had spent time on this work. It gave me hope for young Mr. Whitmore.
Another painting I liked, Unharboring, is a centripetal blob of brown painty marks on a delicately patterned pink background. Whitmore’s use of pattern here was surprising to me; I had not seen it before in his work. I must wonder if Whitmore is succumbing to the present pattern trend, or if he is sincerely interested in the relationship between the decorative and “Fine Art.” Is he jumping on or criticizing this trend?
What is of most interest to me is how Whitmore manages to exhibit typically contradictory styles of painting. Whitmore’s series entitled Manomania Portraits depicts figures from the current governing party and are completely figurative. How does he ride this line, I wonder? As one who has once been accused of making “group shows,” I can only guess. It is clear that all the works on view,be they figurative or abstract, were made by the same (purposefully sloppy) hand, although the relationship between them is suspect. It’s strange; I am both impressed and concerned by ever-changing Whitmore’s stylistic tactics.
Regardless of my suspicions, I like Whitmore’s paintings. They are easy to like. Maybe too easy?

Freebasing with Blackberries

Thomas DeBari reviews Tony Just
at Gavin Brown Enterprise

There were two types of work in the Tony Just show. The painting work was further divided into two categories. First was painting work from street posters ripped from their everyday context. Second were canvases with pop images in a “trapper-keeper” aesthetic. The work commanding the room was sculptures featuring break-dancers after Keith Harring and a few after Picasso.

The sculptures were painted to random effects. The idea of brings together someone like Harring, a king of free speech and the positive message in graffiti art, with community. Also he brought in outside monumental sculpture indoors on a smaller more manageable scale. Are they bootlegs? In appropriating from other artists, generational masters if you will, different approaches in application created a loss in cohesiveness. With that aside it must be the greatness of expression. The variation of culture, different aesthetics, envelop the same starting forms. This is the spirit of the high eighties.

Information not presented to you in the beginning of this exhibit was that the thirty something sculptures while all made by Tony Just were painted by other people during a party. Evidence of this cannot be found anywhere. Here is the disconnect though. It seems important to think about them as being completed in a painting party. Yet not stated the work is confusing. In doing such a varied degree of representation the work is all over and grasping anything is tough. Feeling overwhelmed and crowded by them you just want to dismiss them. I truly believe in the template of the work and the idea of people coming together and the quality of that experience. I think that by not announcing the sculptures as a reason for that event, belittles the magic of the moment. Also in knowing the people involved it feeds a like a wonderful idea of the artist community also present in the 80‘s. Also it mimics the Eighties community of Basquiat Scharf and Haring all on one block making work.

With and without information I foresee two conclusions one in which is positive the other is problematic. The problematic sculptures felt crazy with unresolved identity. The positive sculptures were a diversified field of self-expression. It sucks informational details matters this much. Polke loves it.

The street pieces were edited with paint to show in the moment of concision beauty of the everyday 21st century. Painted out and glazed over the surface a field of paper floated off the wall due to its crustiness. The information obscured was still there under the omitted of info. The edges contained the info that they were ripped down. Promoting the refinement of the work lets the work transcendence with the craft not being problematic. What he does now has a basic system aware of where it came from. That is now the strength of the work. This work also is just caught between the gallery and the street. Provocative, yes, but overall it suffered from the strength of the contextual cube.

The other painting pieces are of street culture. Text messaging and simple design formats dominate the work. Outsider informational pieces talking about aesthetics’ of pop culture. Neo-Expressionism, fluorescent color, and the small scale defined this work. All so diverse there were even cloud studies in pastel and a neon pastel reinvention of leopard print. I feel as if it was a throw back to Monet painting the factories in Paris or even still the moment in Vanilla Sky when “The Cruise Character’s” life becomes computer generated. Allover the work varied greatly. It was hard to grasp the obsession of this person. It felt like a conceptual distancing was done towards this Idea of expressionism. This distance feels like youthful agitation. Some sort of playful wonder at the contemporary culture. Puzzling jargon because of it being out of context, reaffirms the everyday by products of man being mutated. It’s attachment is to the techno based society we have become. Technology shapes and informs society changing us into mutated humans. The show is puzzling and uplifting.

Francis Bacon: Paintings from the 1950's

The Milwaukee Art Museum

by Amy Misurelli Sorensen

I had marked Francis Bacon’s “Paintings from the 1950’s” on display at the MAM on my “to do list” while I was home in Wisconsin for spring break. I wanted to proceed into the exhibition with a dispiriting voice, recently disappointed by a “muddy mess of a pope” painting on display at the Met in New York. Looks like the Met had an abstract pro-Americana agenda at the time of this purchase; it is a diminutive and mediocre piece in comparison to the works on view in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, The Met, one of the most attended art museums in the world, gives little recognition to Bacon as one of England’s most celebrated figurative painters of the twentieth century.

I was also disturbed with Bacon’s film memoir, Love is the Devil, which I viewed days before the exhibition. The film is a half-ass documentary on the tortured life of Bacon and strategically highlights the tortures he administered to himself, friends, and lovers. The opening scene initiates a narcissistic portrayal of Bacon with an aggravated burglary. Bacon calmly encounters the thief in his studio, he propositions the thief “Go to bed with me and you can take anything you want.” The documentary did not depict his expulsion from his family at the age of sixteen for being gay, his father’s brutality towards the young Bacon, or the devastating losses of his beloved nanny and male lover. It did not emphasize the anxieties and struggles of learning to paint. The film made Bacon out to be a monster. It works successfully with its visual distortions mimicking the technique Bacon used in his paintings. However, it did not compliment Bacon’s psychological sensitivity of portraying the figure. The self-consumed, loathing monster, I envisioned, died at the doorway of this exhibition.

In this exhibition, I recognize the trials and tribulations Bacon faced with the process of painting. The paint and his content bastardized Bacon, like his family. Bacon knows human tragedy and despair in their most primal states. He is also a great painter.

Upon entering the gallery, I am confronted by a photomural of Bacon’s infamous studio littered by resources. The walls are spotted, used by Bacon as an unlimited palette. The studio is windowless, with the exception of a skylight, echoing the chaos and confinement found in his work. On display are more than fifty paintings from a prolific decade in Bacon’s life. Many of the paintings, revealed to me for the first time, are on loan from museum and private collections from around the world. They reflect the self-taught Bacon’s plagued life. After familiar abandonment, he encompassed a Bohemian lifestyle dominated by the bottle, sex, and gambling. He lived without a fixed address for years all while establishing himself as an artist. It was not until the 1950’s that Bacon gained financial and artistic success, thirty years after he started to paint.

Bacon taught himself to paint. He dedicated himself to habit and practice. He studied from the masters. “Figure with Meat” on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts a screaming pope and flanks of meat showing Bacon’s obsession with Velazquez and Rembrandt. Also included in the exhibition are sphinxes, animals, studies from and of Van Gogh, and triptychs of the twisted faces of friends, including protégé Lucian Freud. Pablo Picasso, Bacon’s greatest influence may be credited for the dynamic single figure compositions referencing cubist and surrealist traditions. He researched film, the media, and his community with an intuitive eye. He questioned the process of painting-by-painting on the wrong or unprimed side of the canvas. He used tools, including his hands to manipulate the paint. He vigorously built up the paint to create seductive textures juxtapose saturated washes. His palette is rich and brilliant with fuscias, crimsons, pinks, and minty green. I dare say, in Bacon’s biggest defense, the quality of reproduction of his paintings do little justice to their presence in person. I actually compared the exhibition catalogue to the works on the wall at the exhibition, and the book’s plates were dull, off color, and dark in comparison. What a shame and discredit to such an exemplary show.

I encourage fans and foes of Bacon to view this traveling retrospective; it will be traveling from Milwaukee, WI to Buffalo, NY in May.

Be skeptical of reproductions, good paintings should look better in person.

Be critical of the early financial success of young emerging artists and thieves today (umm Cicely Brown). It takes years; sometimes even a lifetime, to be a great painter.

Bacon takes the throne as the father of macabre. I admire his rejection of the two major art movements, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, of his time. He stays committed to the figure and instead of joining forces with American Modernism portrays the devastation of modern man.

“It comes from such a buoyant, optimistic person – these dark images, and that’s part of his genius,” – Michael Peppiatt curator, biographer, and friend of Francis Bacon.

Too Much Information, Sarah Morris

Thomas DeBari
Friedrich Petzel Gallery

When seen at first, the painting screams Stella at the over looking the audience; second, the long tradition of high modernism. Arriving again, they take on a photshop image quality. Shapes of colors taped off. Saturated colors opaquely applied. The paint quality teeters on a wet thick application and a tight crisp edge from being taped off. The design took the shape by rings falling and intersecting with vertical lines of color. The shapes described the play of the rings and the edges of the canvas. As well as the ring paintings, she also showed paintings of triangle interlocking and expanding in scale. The paintings also seemed to have both the raw canvas as space, but then also as flat background that the shapes were displayed on top of. These paintings were from Origami series. Overall the work aesthetically functions on photoshop and high modernism.

The basis for this work is the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Titles of all the ring paintings correlated to other Olympic years. 1932 Rings was based on Los Angeles and the Depression. The Depression marks the time when the event and the competition would fail. But the competition was fierce. Here though, the link is in her fascination with the Depression and the change of city and mindset. With interests in revolution and change, politically, I wonder if that kind of identity can be found in work executed at such a distance. Other titles were 1952 Rings, the U.S.S.R. returned to the games in Helsinki in strong fashion after being out of it for 40 years. Nineteen fifty two also marks the start of the cold war. Though not started by the strong showing in overall standings. Another was 1972 Rings, the famed summer in Munich, where eight Arabian commandos took hostages and killed two Israeli team members. The games must go on apparently though some of the competitors chose to leave. The other painting was 1984 Rings. These Olympics were boycotted by all but one Warsaw Pact country. Romania was the only one to commit to LA for the games. The competition was weak considering Russia and its communist Allies did not participate. The USA hence took home a record setting number of medals; other individuals set records for capturing a multitude of metals in various events. Also, this Olympics had a corporate sponsor and they made 215 million dollars profit.

The rings in the ring painting conceptually relate to ring roads in China which become extremely congested in travel.

Looking for answerers in the conceptual nature of this work, I find interesting facts that don’t change the way I interact with these paintings. The information while brooding is washed away from the work. The road approach in the decision-making though is interesting. The paintings do have speed and congestion that creates the complexity. All are varied but they do not infer any significance of the games and years themselves.

The paintings are beautiful and through this context of looking which is sometimes forgotten, we see speed, movement and redirection. It is enough to understand the abstraction of traffic. We can see the tie to art history. The content of architectural development, the basis of the work, is stripped and essential. They are warm and funny in some of the decisions made. Some of the lines are comic in the depictions of speed. Certainly the work is from cold starting point but believing her care about the craft and significance of the subject matter, it nestles inside a point of view concerned with the world.

Oddly as much as we don’t see the significance of the games in her titles, she knows them and thus enacts that importance into the craft of the title. The interesting problem is can she invoke some sense of history in them. For her, she wants the viewer to think they were significant games but the disconnect is that she does not tell us why. This seems like a wonderful safety net, not saying anything. She intrigues people to look at the games and wonder what happened. In doing so, the games and politics are more interesting than her paintings conceptually. So what am I going to think about?
I had to write this.

Ian Whitmore at G Fine Art

Lauren Rice

I thought that I would like Ian Whitmore’s paintings better than I actually do. I will say, however, that the gallery assistant at G Fine Art only pulled out three works for me to view during my visit. Another disclaimer to Whitmore’s credit is that he does not currently have an arranged exhibition as have the subjects of my previous reviews. Last but not least, I also could have called in advance of my surprise visit to see if a more full viewing could have been arranged. However, enough disclaimers—I will be happy to revise my opinion after seeing an entire Whitmore exhibition.

After reviewing Whitmore’s work online, I felt that the artist must be completely engaged with his work. Strangely enough, I had the opposite impression after viewing several works in person. I was told, though, that the works I was shown were “hot off the press”. I also think that they were the easiest to grab quickly. As a former gallery assistant myself, I know that it can be vaguely annoying when a student comes in and asks to be shown work. However, I also know that you never know who anybody is, or, perhaps more importantly, who they will become. Anyhow, I realize that this tangent has little to do with Whitmore’s work, so I will let it go and move on.



Why is it that so much contemporary artwork looks better online and in other reproductions than in the flesh? One of Whitmore’s paintings that I particularly liked online, Blunt Instrument, had such a luscious, painterly quality that it seemed as if the paint had only just been applied. Although, I did respond to Whitmore’s paint application after seeing works in person, the intense freshness that I perceived online was just not as present. The sole abstraction I saw, Living Room, was about 30 x 22 inches and although I liked the tension between the thinness and thickness of the paint application, the piece just did not really do it for me. The colors of the three paintings I saw were incredibly muted which was surprising considering the high chromo colors used in the works online. Also, they all felt very quick and not entirely worked though, like the beginnings of ideas to be further explored. Whitman is very young and is obviously a “talented” painter. However, I did not feel compelled to examine these paintings for any length of time which lead me to conclude that that he did not feel engaged with the paintings either. Overall, I am least interested in his figurative paintings. They feel very flat and disinterested. (Perhaps this is the point. Maybe. But I am not entirely convinced of that either). Furthermore, I feel that the narrative in his abstractions are much more appealing. In Living Room, for instance, it seems as if a giant chandelier has fallen and crushed some huge winged thing. And why are those red arrows squishing upwards out of the rubble? In fact, all of Whitmore’s abstractions have the quality of something just being spilled or broken into a million tiny components (now made up by beautifully applied paint) to sprawl across the canvas. If anything, I wish Whitmore would rely less heavily on the crutch of his painterly touch and really investigate the subject of his paintings.




On the other hand, I will say that I admire Whitmore’s choice to work both figuratively and abstractly. As a young painter with such renowned gallery representation, I realize that this could be a daunting task. It appears he knows that it is more beneficial to continue his investigations as an artist rather than produce multiple “Whitmore’s”. And although I wish he would investigate his ideas further, his choice deserves some respect.

Jill Moser at Wade Wilson Gallery

HOUSTON connection
written and reviewed by Meredith Cunningham

Recently, on one of those days that screams aloud: Go out amongst the world and be of this time, I drifted into Wade Wilson Gallery in Houston begging the Universe for a morsel of something threateningly alive. A literal and concrete building situated perfectly between the museum district and the trendy part of Montrose, this gallery exists symbiotically with a number of other gallery tenants hoping to bring in the ‘three for one’ crowd. In this place is where I met Jill Moser; not the person per say, but the paintings.

This experience was for me everything that I want an art encounter to be. I walked in, probably a little too smug, and immediately felt a kind of decompression similar to swimming down too deep in a body of water and then releasing yourself to your own buoyancy. Jill Moser’s paintings are portraits of what I imagine Synesthesia to be. They are at once line and form and something that feels faintly like photography. They are musical in that completely silent way that usually means you are looking at something profound. I wondered to myself almost immediately what it was about these oil paintings that were so reminiscent of photography. Perhaps it is the thick yet pristine layers of gesso that hang on the canvases like a porcelain mask absorbing all the textures of the paint into their skin. I could have believed it was made out of just about anything if not for the edges that still give away a canvas skeleton, convincingly deliberate as if to remind itself of who it is. I am a painting.

I could have believed it was a digital print of some sort, even before I thought of drawing. This fascinated me further as I am always attracted to works that take on the conventions of material and tools and work at playing them in a manner that perhaps goes against their natural states. The practice of this kind of witchcraft is the inner scientist that exists in every artist. Even beyond the visceral experience of the material work as an art object, the installation begged attention. These paintings are deliberate in how they relate to each other. They are portraits without faces and sentences without words. The limited palette and duplicated size and orientation lead you to believe that these works are akin. This is where Moser’s painting get down to being really human. The associations I came up with remind me of the cloud game. Do you see that rabbit? No, I see a plate. But do not get too stuck in this game. It is one of those naturally occurring distractions that are an intrinsic part of these kinds of mark-making. Moser’s use of vaporous traces, long ago smudged out lines that hover around the gestures like a statement said then taken back, are ghostly. The forms that she comes up with are so related to the action of painting that one cannot help but think of bottled energy. I am delighted to have been able to look at these works and think so intensely about the life in these paintings. I am both satiated and curious to see how far she takes these ideas.

Stanley Lewis; The Legend

By Amy Misurelli Sorensen

I was amazed to see so many people in attendance at Stanley Lewis’s opening and lecture on February 17. He led a discussion on his retrospective currently on display at the Katzen Museum.

Stanley Lewis comes from a specific school, The New York Art School, where form takes precedence over content. It has a history. It is a very modernist notion and I believed this notion and his work to be dated. I was prepared for the rhetoric to accompany the monotonous display of landscapes presented on the wall. I thought I had Stanley all figured out, and I admit, I went into it half-heartedly.

The audience was a problem. It was a very large crowd. I had a hard time hearing Stanley speak. The fans in attendance fascinated and distracted me with their gaping mouths, frozen smiles, and adoring eyes. What kind of man generates such a large fan club?

Stanley Lewis does.

He stepped in like a breath of fresh air. I found myself engaged with his nonspecific descriptions of process, his humility and honesty to his obsession with paint and paper applications. He is entertaining and I found myself laughing aloud. Finally, someone, an artist, is simply saying it is o.k. to do this art thing, just for the love of it. What a gala and free wine to boot!

On February 19, I witnessed the true genius of Stanley Lewis. Stanley is an admirable teacher. He instructed a drawing class at the National Gallery. After showing the class several Dutch paintings, he recommended we sit and draw from one painting to figure out and reveal its secrets.

I choose to draw from Rembrandt’s “Man with an Earring.” I specifically choose this painting because of the one figure composition and the compelling portrait. Stanley begins to draw along side of me. He eagerly assimilates the larger forms in the planes of the face to their relationships to the planes in the ground. He makes discoveries and shares them with me. I see in Stanley a commitment to figuring out Rembrandt’s formal decisions. I questioned his presumptions, and continued on my own investigation. Then, as I stand and draw from this painting, I have a revelation. Through drawing, I have revealed the analytical rhythm of this painting that is not apparent from first glance. I search through this drawing for two hours, and finally I too figure out the puzzle. I dialogue with the ghost of Rembrandt through my pen and paper.


Stanley’s contagious passion and teachings are a gift. Stanley Lewis is committed, as Picasso was, to figuring out the language of art.

Bill Jensen at Cheim and Read

February 15 to March 24, 2007
547 West 25th, NY, NY

reviewed by Tim Campbell

Nearly two-dozen of Bill Jensen’s most recent paintings are currently on view at Cheim and Reid in Chelsea. This is Jensen’s first show at Cheim and Read, and his first show of works on canvas since leaving Mary Boone Gallery. The show reveals several years of a labor-intensive, virtuosic painting process that explores pigments, mediums, and emotions, but ultimately falls short because of Jensen’s reliance upon techniques and an inability to find new ideas in his own work.

Issues of The Brooklyn Rail were available at the gallery containing an interview with Jensen about his work and his sources for inspiration. In a particularly telling response, Jensen says that his work is very close to alchemy because of his desire to expose the energy that he finds inherent in materials; he speaks extensively on the different textures and uniqueness of pigments and the necessity to discover emotional content in these materials. In short, Jensen is addicted to paint and to painting, and this is what made the show so dazzling and so disconcerting all at once.

These new paintings are incredibly well-crafted and visually stunning; the materials are handled with great sensitivity and elegance, and the colours have a hyper-intensity that is arresting, highly emotional, and intoxicating. It is rare to find such thorough mastery of technique in art galleries. The craft and paint-handling are unapologetically the focus of these paintings, and Jensen utilizes his techniques to search for the quirky and unique compositions that result from taking chances and risks.

The paintings that stand out most are the stunning “Ape Herd VIII,” “Ashes,” “St. Sebastian,” and “Luohan #6.” The distinguishing factor that makes these paintings more successful is their ability to convey something specific, whether it is a sensation, emotion, or psychological state. “Ape Herd” and “Ashes” are two dark canvases whose faint gestural marks and deep black-violets convey somber moods and deep, empty spaces. They stand out from the other three paintings with same palette and emotional tone because the vague compositions and dark colors are more cohesive; they create gestures that border on recognizable images. This holds the viewer before the painting for a greater amount of time, which seems to be what Jensen is after. If he intends to wager everything on the materials and the process, then these works must be about looking for the viewer. Jensen is asking for patience from his audience, and for his paintings to work in this way, they must offer the viewer something to return to and dwell upon. This is slippery ground; many of the works in this show fall short because the compositions are generalized and thus inaccessible.

When it comes to content, Jensen helps some of his paintings along with a suggestive title. “St. Sebastian” and “Luohan #6” both refer to religion and religious icons (according to the press release, the Luohan were disciples of the Buddha). Jensen seems to be saying that his work has to do with a generalized sort of spirituality or religiosity; there are no specific indicators in the work besides emotion and composition, so the viewer is left on their own when it comes to connecting the works to their titles. Because of the slowness in the paintings and way that translucent colour is allowed to hover just in front of the canvas, there is a kindness, calmness, and consideration in these paintings that works well with the notion of spirituality. This sense of being content was absent in Jensen’s intense palate-knife paintings from the 80s, which explored darker parts of the psyche. It is this same consideration and contentedness that sets Jensen’s new work apart from traditional New York School abstraction.

Ultimately the hallucinatory colours that Jensen relies on in these new paintings reveal too much of the artist’s process and do not offer enough of a search. We can easily see the artist working, but we cannot see the artist making discoveries, surprising the viewer, or discovering unique paintings that remove the artist’s hand from the content. The game that Jensen plays is a familiar one; we have seen this struggle with chance and process in mid-century modernism. The great success of Jensen’s career is his ability to reinterpret this game and play it on terms that are unique to himself and his environment. The failure of this show is that Jensen relives the failures of mid-century modernism, only on his own terms and through his own interpretation. Jensen is clearly a painter of immense skill, but the viewer needs something besides virtuosity in order to find interest in the work. This show sidelined a few paintings that are absolutely wonderful, and filled the main gallery with repetitive gestures and repetitive colours. In the future, I hope Jensen will highlight his best, most unique works and sideline the repetitive ones, even if it means showing fewer paintings, because he is too good of a painter to be written off as a generic abstractionist.

A recent interview with this artist can be found at the Brooklyn Rail.

Stanley Lewis, A Retrospective

reviewed by Lauren Rice
American University Museum at the Katzen

If artist Stanley Lewis is anything like his work then he is indeed charismatic, eccentric, passionate, rigidly energetic and obsessive. I have heard for years about Lewis' personality and his work through professors and fellow students, however his current retrospective at the Katzen Art Center has given me my first opportunity to view his work for myself. At first glance, the paintings steal the show, illuminating the gallery with their sugary palette. However, although I am intrigued by Lewis' paintings, it is his drawings that I find extraordinary.

Stanley Lewis' drawings are unlike anything I have ever seen. Lewis' collaged elements echo the nervous energy of Giacometti's lines. If he had not succumbed to so many collaged pieces the drawings would be nothing grand, but their fantastic obssessiveness puts them into a superior category. His obsessively patched paper reiterates his packed compositions that have been ripped apart, scratched out and built back into until they become tactile, sculptural things. Backyard trees become jungles and kitchen interiors become hazardous. There is a violent beauty in his process, destructive and constructive simultaneously. His decision to often leave obvious holes in the paper as touches of light or his choice to show his work unframed is refreshingly confrontational. Lewis has found a way not to feel precious about his marks or his paper. It is just paper, after all. Collage allows him to change anything at all and adds to the overwhelming experience of his world.

The drawings and the paintings in the retrospective begin to speak of movement, fragmented memory and order in chaos. Things in the world are constantly moving and Lewis moves with them, cutting out or building on paper when necessary. One gets the sense that he is searching for truth but knows he will never find it. In fact, the errors and Lewis' search for perfection creates a truth bigger then the frenzy of trying to render without flaw. The collage creates a history, as Bill Willis said, "an archeological dig in reverse."

I like Lewis' paintings for the same reason I like his drawings, for their sculptural quality and Lewis' additive eagerness to change the shape of the canvas if truth or the need for a more interesting composition requires. For some reason, however, the construction of the paintings becomes the focus, as opposed to what is painted on the construction. (Confession: I must admit that this comes from a conversation with someone else. It wasn't my idea first. But I have thought about it seriously and do believe it to be true.) The construction is what is eye-catching and different instead of the way that they are painted. This is similar to the work of Frank Stella and Elizabeth Murray: I find their work more interesting without the theatrical construction of the canvas. In fact, I feel that it takes away from the work as a whole and the artist's excitement of creating space on a two-dimensional surface. Furthermore, although Lewis' colors often glow with glossy mediums, I miss the thin areas of the drawings that perfectly contrasted to the heavy buildup of paper in other areas. There seemed to be less thinness/thickness contrast in the paintings than the drawings and for this I find them less satisfying. However, I still find him a painter to be reckoned with. The evidence of his work ethic alone is extraordinary and I love that he does not automatically accept the boundaries of the canvas as the boundaries of the painting. There exists a passion in his work that is rarely seen.

Gillian Carnegie at Andrea Rosen

written by Brian Barr

Andrea Rosen Gallery in Chelsea is currently host to an exhibition of new paintings by British painter Gillian Carnegie. Carnegie is a traditional painter in that she has maintained the use of the rectangle as the picture plane, and paints on stretched canvas, yet still belongs to a continuum of young painters today exploring what it means to be a painter right now. Her themes cover the very traditional realm of landscape, still life and nudes; arguably, the three most prevalent themes in the history of western academic painting. The show is made up of large painterly images of trees and horizon lines, intimately scaled still lifes with the subtle hues referencing Morandi, and small paintings of a young womans naked butt; which I found out later to be self portraits of a kind.

It is from this tradition of western painting that Carnegie’s work stems. It is also this very tradition and her place in it, as well as the place of painting within the context of the contemporary art world that Carnegie is concerned with. She seems fixed on the pairs of binaries within the context of paintings formal properties. The press release issued by the gallery says, “Carnegie explores a place between subject and style, representation and abstraction, depiction and matter.”. While she maintains a high degree of sensitivity and admiration for her own mark and palette, she also creaties bold gestural strokes reminiscent of the Bay Area figurative painters. It appears that her intention is to flirt with the line between painting and image, form and content.

Carnegie's work cannot escape the dialogue about beauty and aesthetics; and I would guess that she is not only not concerned with avoiding this discussion, but very much wants to make paintings in defense of both. Beauty and aesthetic quality are both her greatest strengths and most obvious weakness. The simple fact of the matter is that Carnegie can lay down paint with the best of them, and her paintings are truly beautiful. It would be hard not to be impressed with her technical prowess and mastery of her craft. She has the ability to craft paintings dealing with light, space, color and design, yet I find that at times there is an almost narcissistic infatuation with this ability that gets in her way. It is only in the context of the small paintings of her own ass that the show becomes curious.

Next to beautiful little painting of a vase of flowers in a very subtle pallette is a painting of the artist bent over from behind, leaving me to wonder if it is her intention to objectify herself and Painting all at once? Being a female painter today no doubt versed in feminist theory, Carnegie cannot possibly be ignorant of what it implies to paint a female nude in the position, void of a head, body or any personal signifiers. All that is left is the feminine orifice and surrounding flesh. Yet these images were not created by a man, and what is more, they are self portraits.

Carnegie appears to be claiming ownership of her own self objectifications and the stigma that traditional, self referential painting has become. To explore ones ability to manipulate paint; to strive to create beautiful images through technical mastery has certainly become more than slightly taboo, and still Carnegie has no qualms with trying to “explore the handling of paint”.

Portrait Gallery 2006 Competition Review

Katherine Knight

I was disappointed in the Outwin Boochever 2006 Portrait competition at the National Portrait Gallery. I saw a lot of skillful painting, to be sure, but to what end? I went in hoping to gain some insight into the state contemporary portraiture, but found that most of the pieces relied too heavily on either art history or photography for my taste.

Offenders in the first category include Ginny Stanford, and Richard Weaver. Stanford’s gilded vertical triptych of Nicholas looks like some bizarre cross between an icon and a sterile CEO portrait, and unfortunately conveys no trace of the strong AIDS survivor described in her Artist Statement. I was particularly keen to see Weaver’s painting of Maggie Sullivan since he is the mentor of a dear friend. Unfortunately, the stylistic nostalgia is so overpowering that the sitter’s contemporary clothing seems out of place; and not in a good way.

There is also a sub-category of historical coattail riders; a gimmick so obvious that it overshadows all legitimate skill. Among these are William Lawrence’s Big Self-Portrait, whose Warholian scale, color, and funny hair are permissible only because the artist is clearly no more than 15 years old and doesn’t know any better, and Mark Dennis’ Portrait in the Composition of a Jackson Pollock Painting, Echo no. 10, 1951. Need I say more? There are also those who painted actual living historical figures; such as Paul Oxborough’s uninteresting Chuck Close, and Kathleen Gilje’s Robert Rosenblum as the Marquis de Pastoret; which is witty for the correlation it draws, but rendered in an unconvincing cut-and-paste manner.

There are two portraits of historical figures worth mentioning for their aptitude. The first is Carle Shi’s large, double portrait of Anthony Haden-Guest, which is beautifully executed, striped down, contemporary and thoughtful in an unselfconscious way, and Brenda Zlamany’s Portrait #83 in which a discerning Alex Katz stares critically out at the viewer for a change.

Among those who rely too heavily on photography are Bryan Drury’s Electro Bloodlines and Sarah Sohn’s Between Dialogues. It is clear to me, from the flat colors and all-too-familiar light source that both artists went to great pains to copy a photograph, and my question is ‘why bother?’

Two artists who address photography and film in a more complex way are Alan Caomin Xie and Burton Philip Silverman. Xie’s Still Image 24-Andrea resembles a de-laced TV still, and directly challenges the traditional relationship between portrait artist and sitter. Silverman turns assumptions about use of photographic sources upside down in Survivor by including the camera in his very painterly self-portrait. This begs us to question whether the camera is being used as a tool or a prop, and then to question the larger significance of ‘tool’ and ‘prop’. Earlier I asked ‘why bother’, and Silverman’s painting seems to counter ‘why bother questioning my camera when I can get this kind of result?’

There are a few truly original pieces in the competition. Among these are Zak Smith’s Girls in the Naked Girl Business: Aprella, which flirts dangerously with graphic design but ultimately escapes the stigma by the shear density and specificity of the image, and Steve DeFrank’s light-bright piece Mom and Dad- whose combination of material nostalgia and parental nudity is cheeky, hysterical, and a little disturbing. My favorite piece is Winter to Spring by Sara Pedigo. The piece is comprised of 47 match-box sized images painted chronologically on a single slat of wood; a format clearly referencing a film strip. However, instead of indulging in a straightforward narrative or some kind of motion sequence, Pedigo explores broader cinematic themes such as the development of character, place, and time. The result is genuine, light-hearted, and exquisite in its simplicity.

My hope for next year’s competition would be that more artists would attack the difficult issues facing portrait painting in the 21st century, and that less would rely on crutches and gimmicks.

http://www.portraitcompetition.si.edu/exhibition/PeoplesChoiceAward/AllFinalists.aspx

Daoist painting at the Freer Collection, Bradley Chriss

Since its inception more than two thousand years ago in the Eastern Han dynasty, Daoism (also known as Taoism) has permeated every aspect of Chinese life and culture, from politics, philosophy, literature, and music to chemistry, medicine, and the martial arts. Using works in the Freer's permanent collection, this exhibition looks at four aspects of Daoism: its foundations as a school of thought based on Daojia; images of Daoist immortals and paradises; ways to achieve immortality; and Daoist gods and the influence of folklore, Confucianism, and Buddhism on Daoism.- Freer Collection Curator Statement.


From The Freer Collection an exhibition of Daoist(Taoist) painting and artifacts has been organized. The function of the exhibit is to bring some light to a Western viewer on the cultural function and context of these artifacts as they existed outside of a museum. The most important idea behind the exhibit is the distinction between a “philosophical” Taoism and a “religious” Taoism, and how all of the artifacts in this exhibit could be classified as Taoist but have some culturally internal distinction(within China). To understand Taoism is a difficult task, especially in the West(limitations and indiscrepencies of translation and scholarship are two of the greatest hurdles in even beginning an approach of Taoism)Taoism over time( beginning around the third century b.c.e.) has adapted and amalgamized with many different ideas and cultural practices in China. Taoism is simultaneously part folk religion, part ancestor worship, part alchemy, part Buddhism and part Confucionism.

A painter in the Qing dynasty (1644-1912 c.e.) painted Zhuangzi laying on a cliff sleeping as a butterfly the size of a human hovers above. Zhuangzi anchors the bottom left corner as the butterfly lifts the upper right corner on this small silk square. The ink shifts from sharp line to soft shape as they delicately describe nuanced folds in cloth hair and wings and insect body and sky. Zhuangzi is seperated from the butterfly only by a line( which indicates the ground) and his consciousness( he is sleeping). The seperation and odd scale of the butterfly indicate an otherness or a barrier of realities between Zhuangzi and the butterfly.The eyes of the butterfly stare at Zhuangzi contemplatively, reinforcing a sense of presence first indicated by size( the butterfly is not only more considered because of scale, but also because of gaze) The butterfly is not just as bit as a man, but as thoughtful. The work is titled “Butterfly Dream” reflecting the story of when Zhuangzi dreamt of a butterfly but awoke wondering if actually the butterfly was dreaming of him. This artifacts image represents a relativity that is present in Taoism. The artist is telling us that Zhuangzi is asking us to consider the possibilites of the unkown as well as asking us to break down preconcieved notions of human control on domains such as thought, presence and importance.

A scroll is covered by a plexiglass case, and supported at an incline on a neutral gray surface. Staring back at me through this case and their own picture plane are three creatures in the midst of a clamorous procession. The procession is ecstatic and full of humor. The Daoist Divinity of Water or Water Official is making its way on a long, tangled dragon across a storm full of thunder and wind. A boar headed thunder god bangs on drums as two demons cause a cacophony with their giant washboard looking noisemakers joined by two women deities clashing cymbals.The Water Official is one of three officials in Taoism, the other two being Heaven and Earth. The Water official can grant blessings, offer protection and forgive sins. Here he is driving off evil spirits. This Ming Dynasty painter( 15-16th century c.e.) has shown us that three members of the Water Officials entourage are aware of us and hence that the artist is also aware of us. Who is looking at us and why? Are the warriors and creatures trying to acknowledge us as part of the group, as an outside but accepted witness or possibly as a demon which they are trying to expel? Or is the artist staring at us through these creatures? I believe all of these experiences are happening in the picture through the viewer. A taoist perspective on this image would not indicate a certainty of one role, but of understanding the possibility of all roles in the image and our( the viewer) relationship to them as well as our relationship to the artist. We have become the butterfly contemplating across the line of the ground staring at the artist as he sleeps through his dream eyes in picture. If we begin to consider all of the roles: The viewer, the participant, the demon, the witness, ourselves we begin to see how these roles indicate or allow for the different types of roles occuring in this procession: The Water Official, the thunder god, warriors and creatures, all protectors and clamoring and cacophonous. The gaze from the participants in the picture shows us that we actually validate their presence and their duties and roles, and even as the artist looks at us through those eyes we also validate the artist, as they validate our viewership. It is in this piece titled “Daoist Divinity of Water” that we begin to understand Taoisms capacity to absorb so much “external” idea(i.e. confucionism, buddhism, alchemy etc) that whatever comes into contact with Taoism must be considered as a possiblity of one way to truth. The procession reflects the essential idea of Taoism which is:

The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way;

The names that can be named are not unvarying names.

It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;

The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind. (chap. 1, tr. Waley[1])-Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Tim Doud at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art by David Waddell

Tim Doud’s show titled Materiality explores the language of symbols. Doud’s use of clothing and accessories reinforces society’s artificial state of how one remains an individual while participating in society through labeling, logos, patterning and colors of cloth, application of lipsticks, the psychology of glasses and hairdos.

We question authenticity of factors that compose the sitter. The line between advertisement and humanity is questioned. The sitter seems animalistic or like a specimen. This is evident in the short depth of field which Doud presents his subjects.

Applying lipstick is a human characteristic. Animals have particular striking markings, which would sexually attract a mate. It is a human choice to physically alter oneself. Considering this point, when I see Angie, she looks less human with lipstick. Doud paints the lips in a flat manner, emphasizing that Angie is wearing a mask of cosmetics. Her lips and hair sit on top of the surface. This is most evident in Lady Dangerous. The paintings are awkward. There is not much space between Angie and the wall, and then Angie and the viewer. She stares out at us like a deer caught in headlights. She does not have a blank expression but one of understanding that she is under the scrutiny of the painter’s eye.

The act of Angie changing clothes to accommodate various make-up shades emphasizes the artifice of painting. The difference between Angie coloring her face with cosmetics and Doud painting Angie’s painted face are similar acts with different social receptions and implications.

Portrait painting originated to commemorate and remember the diseased. Royalty and government officials have their portraits placed in public viewing. People wear lockets and carry pictures in their wallets to remember loved ones. To own or have a portrait of a person is not entirely self-indulgent. In contrast, hiding ones blemishes and flaws through make-up is self-centered. We have to ask why one would paint Angie in costumed situations. Is it to remember that time Angie wore crazy hats and hot pink? No, it is to declare a statement, not just a momentary thought or passing. That is for the photograph. To paint about paint, about pigment is to make a statement. Colors decorate and enhance the world whether it is through painting, cosmetics, advertisements, or clothing.

Doud hints at the pop world’s fascination with advertisement, the billboard, repetition and flat shapes. Doud brushes against but not fully divulges in Katz. He may subscribe to Alex Katz eyes and lips but he must differentiate the visuals when concerning the rest of the body, the skin, the background in order to make a statement on the place of the real and artificial. It is the costume versus the sitter’s aura.

He touched on Warhol with twelve tiled paintings of himself. The heads and faces are subtly different. I could imagine Doud being a factory unto himself, painting twelve floating heads on a blank canvas and then applying different apparell. He too, looks uncomfortable. He is under the scrutiny of his own eye and more importantly, his own thoughts and decisions as a painter.

The sitters who appear more comfortable are from larger works, Haulin Ass and Bobcat. These are from a series where Doud’s sitters dress in clothes worn for a special event. In Haulin Ass, a man faces us frontally without pants. The image is cropped at the tip of his exposed penis. He stares out indifferently. There is no difference between his favorite cotton shirt and the breeze between his legs. It is comfort with material (the cotton of our lives) and comfort with body.

I witnessed two guys realizing that the sitter was not wearing pants. They stepped back, laughing at themselves and their delayed discovery. This is what the composition is set up to look passed assumptions. And it worked.

Bobcat presents a man equally comfortable with himself and his fur-adorned jacket over his shirtless body. He wears a hood over a hat. His clothing choices are geared towards absurd fashion, not function. It could be that he is high. His eyes are red and bloodshot.

I remain neutral about Doud’s backgrounds because I cannot imagine them a differently. The sitters are loaded and work within these emptied spaces. Nitpicking, the depictions of veins bother me when they resemble yarn rather than a passageway for blood. I also question the placement of The Florist on the wall. I do not know if the canvas is placed at the height of this man’s head, but I find it hokey.

I heard some comments about the work being derivative of Alice Neel, but I think that is incorrect and a disservice to Doud’s intentions and comments about society. We live in different times, more conceptual times than Neel. These are more than portraits. They discuss the role of paint, clothing and societal ideas that form us as individuals.