Buoyant, by Canadian artist Vicki Smith, from a 2018 exhibition at Bau-Xi Gallery in Vancouver. Smith is currently in the two person show Swimmers with photographer Joshua Jensen-Nagle at Pendulum Gallery.
Jul 292022
Jul 042022
Jasper Johns’ Three Flags, 1958, is currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC.
Information about the work from the Whitney’s website-
In 1954, Jasper Johns began painting what would become one of his signature emblems: the American flag. As an iconic image–comparable to the targets, maps, and letters that he also has depicted–Johns realized that the flag was “seen and not looked at, not examined.” The execution and composition of Three Flags elicit close inspection by the viewer. The painting draws attention to the process of its making through Johns’s use of encaustic, a mixture of pigment suspended in warm wax that congeals as each stroke is applied; the resulting accumulation of discrete marks creates a sensuous, almost sculptural surface. The work’s structural arrangement adds to its complexity. The trio of flags—each successively diminished in scale by about twenty-five percent—projects outward, contradicting classical perspective, in which objects appear to recede from the viewer’s vantage point. By shifting the visual emphasis from the flag’s emblematic meaning to the geometric patterns and variegated texture of the picture surface and the canvas structure, Johns explores the boundary between abstraction and representation. As he remarked, this painting allowed him to “go beyond the limits of the flag, and to have different canvas space.”
Jun 282022
Crystal and Counter Light, 1994 at The Ringling
The Mississippi “Shake Rag”, 2020 at Pace
The Mississippi “Shake Rag”, 2020 (detail)
Abstract artist Sam Gilliam passed away last weekend at the age of 88. The innovative artist had an extensive body of work that encapsulated numerous styles and techniques. I was lucky enough to see his work at Pace gallery in NYC in 2020 and at The Ringling in Sarasota, Florida, in 2021.
The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. is currently showing his final solo exhibition, Sam Gilliam: Full Circle, until 9/21/22.
ARTNews has a good profile on Gilliam, as does The Washington Post, and under this Smithsonian tribute are numerous examples of his work from their collection.
Jun 202022
Florida Roadside- Gatorland, 2020
Dusk Pines, 2020 (left) and Pinelands, 2020
Artists Sam McCoy (works above) and Sheherazade Thenard (work below) were both part of the recent exhibition Fresh Squeezed 6: Emerging Artists in Florida at Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Information on Sam McCoy from her website–
Sam McCoy was born and raised in Orlando, Florida in the 90s. She is a contemporary painter who focuses on the boundaries between natural and hyperreal landscapes of Florida. She pulls her inspirations from a place where spectacles and roadside attractions dominate America’s tourism capital. Between eco-tourism destinations and constructed gardens, McCoy explores the contradictions of her experiences in these places. By pulling back the metaphorical curtain on a carefully crafted image of Florida, McCoy’s ideas of disenchantment and re-enchantment are enacted in each painting. The viewer can still find meaning in the shadier discordant corners of the State.
Magnolia, 2020
From Sheherazade Thenard’s information page–
For me, a landscape painting is not merely a visual representation of the world. It is a metaphor for the human condition. I paint to try to make sense of the fragility of our world, the passing of time, and our shared experiences of light, color, and space. The incorporation of figures within my paintings are often swallowed or hidden by their constructed lush surroundings. Painting the land and its inhabitants continues to be a way of engaging with the strangeness of being here.
The undercurrent themes of mysticism, escapism and fantasy are reoccurring within my pieces. Through these works, I aim to create psychological spaces paired with hidden symbolism integral to the understanding of each painting.
Check out both of their websites to see more of their excellent work.
Apr 152022
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s 2018 painting, The Ever Exacting, from her 2019 exhibition, In Lieu of a Louder Love at Jack Shainman Gallery in NYC.
This poem, written by the artist, was included with the press release for the show-
In Lieu Of A Louder Love
In the Shade of Hooded Cove,
In Debt to the Dead Oak.
In Range of a Twelve Gauge,
On Embers over Smoke.
At Pains to Hold the Wanton,
At Home to all who Knock.
At Prayer on Prickly Hearth Rug,
An Eye upon the Clock.
In the Parlance of the Pilgrim,
In Hallelujah Coat and Tie.
In Soul so Black Beguiling,
That the Ravens do Carp and Cry.
In Memory of A Cipher,
At Peace beside resting Dove.
In Light of Care and Kindness,
In Lieu of A Louder Love.
The information below is from the gallery’s artist biography, and gives some added insight on her paintings.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s oil paintings focus on fictional figures that exist outside of specific times and places. In an interview with Nadine Rubin Nathan in the New York Times Magazine, Yiadom-Boakye described her compositions as “suggestions of people…They don’t share our concerns or anxieties. They are somewhere else altogether.” This lack of a fixed narrative leaves her work open to the projected imagination of the viewer.
Her paintings are rooted in traditional formal considerations such as line, color, and scale, and can be self-reflexive about the medium itself, but the subjects and the way in which the paint is handled is decidedly contemporary. Her predominantly black cast of characters often attracts attention. In an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist in Kaleidoscope, she explained “People are tempted to politicize the fact that I paint black figures, and the complexity of this is an essential part of the work. But my starting point is always the language of painting itself and how that relates to the subject matter.”
The New Yorker published a wonderful portrait of Yiadom-Boakye by Zadie Smith in 2017, that is well worth a read as well.
Feb 172022
A Surreal Presence for Every Possible State, 2018 by Kenturah Davis from her 2019 exhibition, Blur in the Interest of Precision at Matthew Brown Los Angeles. The four panel work was created using oil paint applied with rubber stamp letters and graphite grid on embossed Mohachi paper.
From the press release-
Blur in the Interest of Precision is a search for parallel conditions between the poetics of our visual experience and the strangeness of our relationship to language. We often use language to carve out distinctions between one thing and another. Davis’ objective—to complicate ideas about meaning, representation and perception—have found refuge in blur and doubling. The new drawings are rendered with arrangements of text, but the words are virtually illegible. Many of the portraits pursue ideas the artist is working through via the writings of Fred Moten and Toni Morrison’s essay, Sites of Memory.
Davis’ work oscillates between various facets of portraiture and design. Using text as a point of departure, the artist explores the fundamental role that language has in shaping how we understand ourselves and the world around us. This manifests in a variety of forms including drawings, photographs and performances.
Recently Davis was commissioned by LA Metro to create work for the future Inglewood Station, slated to open in November of 2022. The work, Sonder, depicts community members photographed at gatherings at the artist’s Inglewood art studio and made into large porcelain enamel steel panels.
From Metro’s site–
The photographs were hand painted with stamps incorporating letters that form the words defining the term “sonder.”
Davis was drawn to the term which alludes to the realization that every person has a unique and significant story. She hopes that the portraits inspire connections between strangers, even if only for a passing moment while waiting for the train.
(images below via LA Metro’s site)
For more images, information about the station, and a video of the artist discussing the work, check out Metro’s website.
Dec 162021
Two Men, 1969 by Vivian Browne, part of a group show this past summer at Ryan Lee Gallery in New York.
Dec 042021
Self Portrait with Ray, 2017 by Linda Stark, part of Hammer Museum’s Made In L.A. 2018 Biennial in Los Angeles.
Nov 022021
For more of Jessica Contreras’ work, check out her Instagram
Oct 052021
Kim Anderson, “Alone Together”, 2021
Stereoscope for viewing the above painting
Skyway 20/21: A Contemporary Collaboration, is the second iteration of a joint exhibition across four institutions that highlights contemporary art created in the Central Florida region. Artists selected by a jury are from five counties- Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee, and Sarasota. The exhibitions are an excellent sampling of the work being made in the Tampa Bay area.
The works shown in this post are from the exhibition at the Tampa Museum of Art. The museum has a video playlist on YouTube that includes all of the artists in the exhibition discussing their work. The links below are to the artists’ websites or those videos.
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Jaime Aelavanthara and Amanda Sieradzki – Hillsborough
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Kim Anderson – Sarasota
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Wendy Babcox – Hillsborough
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Janet Folsom – Pinellas
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Samson Huang – Hillsborough
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Jason Lazarus – Hillsborough
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Kirk Ke Wang – Hillsborough
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Cassia Kite – Sarasota
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Jenn Miller – Hillsborough
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Sarah O’Donoghue – Sarasota
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Herion Park – Sarasota
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Anat Pollack – Hillsborough
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Libbi Ponce – Hillsborough
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Selina Román – Hillsborough
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John Sims – Sarasota
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Mike Solomon – Sarasota
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Jill Taffett – Sarasota
Selina Román “XS” 2019
For Selina Román’s XS series, she created abstract self portraits that examine standards of beauty in relation to expectations of weight and body. The title XS references an extra small size and alludes to the word excess.
This exhibition closes 10/10/21.