NYC Art Shows- Holly Coulis at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Jun 202024
 

Holly Coulis’s latest colorful paintings for Rubber Band at Klaus con Nichtssagend have a wonderful energy to them, encouraging the eye to move along the various shifting lines.

From the press release-

Outlines serve as unreliable guides in Coulis’s new work. Here, long, colorfully painted strokes adopt a cursive quality, departing from the still life representations they have previously delineated. Squiggles and loops press against each other, moving mischievously through broader fields of layered chromatic brushstrokes. At times, these lines rush like rivulets across the canvas, while elsewhere they form an array of dynamically curving shapes within confined areas. The lines prove unpredictable, veering around hairpin curves and playfully wobbling after crafting graceful arcs. Following their trajectory leads us on detours that challenge our initial perceptions. Glimpses of familiar silhouettes—vases, bowls, fruits—vanish as swiftly as they materialize, as if the line refuses to complete the thought, instead eagerly moving on to the next loop, curl, or helix.

This exhibition is on view until 6/22/24.

 

NYC Art Shows- Erika Ranee at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Mar 222023
 

Erika Ranee, “Nacre”, 2023

Erika Ranee, “Nacre”, 2023 (detail)

Erika Ranee, “You Go First”, 2023

Erika Ranee, “You Go First”, 2023 (detail)

Erika Ranee, “You Go First”, 2023 (detail)

The paintings by Erika Ranee, part of her exhibition, All Natural at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, are densely constructed and require a closer look to truly appreciate the work it took to create the intense final products.

From the press release-

Ranee takes inspiration from the world all around her; a crosstown bus ride might reveal pops of color in a passenger’s bright blue IKEA bag seen against municipal orange plastic seats. A bucket of “Purple Dark” acrylic, discontinued by Guerra Paints but gifted to the artist, might bring to mind dahlias and peonies, her favorite flowers. All Natural refers to Ranee’s time spent between NYC and rural Western Massachusetts, and an ongoing fascination with both the fertile, natural world of the countryside and a – no-less fecund  – urbanized terrain shaped by its human inhabitants. The title also obliquely refers to drawings Ranee made of her niece’s braided hair extensions, some of which have been collaged into her paintings’ surfaces, fomenting another set of layered meaning to the works.

Ranee employs a wide variety of painting techniques to create her abstractions. Image and surface are developed through wide-ranging and multitudinous applications and removals of material in dense layers. Wide swaths of color are poured, allowing multi-directional deltas that show the influence of gravity and entropy. Lustrous, glossy paints sit under or beside bubbling and crackled powdery pigments on the canvas. Elements are collaged from sources including blacklight posters, coloring book pages, found children’s drawings and spray-stenciled botanical matter. In places, cut scraps of other paintings are glued onto her raucous surfaces then painted over, cut up, torn out and painted again. Some layers include ink drawings on newsprint shellacked or encased in gel mediums, then incised and peeled to reveal hidden forms underneath. Patterns resembling electric Lichtenberg formations are made through spray paint expelled directly into wet shellac. The result is a body of work that invites us to look closely, examine details, and wonder at its making, all while reveling in the lush colors and forms that ebb and flow before us.

This exhibition closes 3/25/23.