Richard Serra repost

This is the post I wrote for the First Street Gallery blog:

Richard Serra is one of my favorite minimalist artists. My first encounter, strangely enough, was a rather offensive steel structure at the Tate Modern and I remember distinctly thinking how dangerous and difficult it must have been to get that particular mass and weight up to the fourth floor. I was unnerved by the prospect of the process alone. Also I was very hesitant to go near it looking as unstable as it does.  
 

Trip Hammer, 1988, photo courtesy of http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/richard-serra-1923

  

The second time was Inside Out, 2013, Weatherproof steel, at the 21^st Street Gagosian. I was changed by walking through that installation sculpture. Again I thought about logistics at first, but there was a guard having a panic attack from standing at the center of the warped space and I could feel the manipulation of my own personal, comfortable space waxing and waning.   It was incredible.  Beautiful.  Indescribably intelligent.   As a painter, “manipulating the viewer” became a really important concept to how I viewed and made art.  Like all natural wonders, Inside Out made me feel insignificant. 

Image courtesy of Hyperallergic, http://hyperallergic.com/92340/mr-big-stuff-richard-serra-piles-it-on/

Richard Serra’s drawings, Vertical and Horizontal Reversals, at David Zwirner were just as incredible.  The black pigment spread thick like an exotic butter on raw whitepaper had my painting sensibilities enraptured. 

Photo courtesy of David Zwirner, http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/richard-serra-vertical-and-horizontal-reversals-2/

Richard Serra: Equal at David Zwirner was just as incredible to me.  Like childhood blocks, stacked high only to be knocked down in a powerful swoop, giving the player confidence and building the ego, these blocks are stacked but reverse the power lesson.   These blocks cannot easily be knocked down.  They are massive, weigh tons, and impress the viewer with the wonder of those ideas.  Like natural wonders, the blocks effectively reduce the viewer to insignificance in the greater universe.

I do believe that Jerry Saltz put it best in his three sentence review.

Photo: Richard Serra: Equal, David Zwirner, New York, 2015 Photo by Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART, Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London Artwork ? 2015 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Richard Serra: "Equal"
David Zwirner
537 W. 20th St., through July 24

“By now it's not unusual when confronting one of Richard Serra's gigantic, metrically menacing, magnetically mighty curving steel sculptures, which are simultaneously architectonic and geological, to walk all around its meandering curves, maybe spot lovers kissing in the center of one, look at it in utter awe, yawn, and say, "Great!" This new show consists of four huge stacks of two cubic slabs, one atop another, and find Serra's mastery of material, mass, gravity, density, and an almost uncanny not-thereness now joined by ideas of the empty spaces between these shapes of steel and the tremendous forces acting upon them — but nevertheless being empty presences, interstices that you can look into and know in your body. This is his best show in more than 15 years of great shows, and it resounds with a complexity and cosmic instability not seen in solitary objects since Giorgio Morandi's miraculous vibrating arrangements.” - Jerry Saltz

Richard Serra is at David Swirner until July 24 but if you’re like me, don’t just go once!

For more information go to: http://www.davidzwirner.com/exhibition/richard-serra-vertical-and-horizontal-reversals-2/

FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis

Stanley Lewis, Westport, 2010-2014, oil on canvas 21.25 by 35.25 inches

FIRST STREET GALLERY blog: Stanley Lewis: Hello followers!   With the new season upon us, we are reinvigorated and are re-encouraged to record our thoughts and adventures!   ...

December Group Show

In our age of polyphonic diversity the title, “NO RESTRICTIONS” easily assimilates into today’s vast canons of possibilities. So too, First Street Gallery has evolved over the decades into more open expressions of individual artistic visions. Thus, each artist creates both a private vocabulary and a retrieval of past traditions.

Participating artists: Jennifer Aldridge, Nancy Balliett, Jessica Bartlet, Kathleen Bennett Bastis, Sallie Benton, Sandra Caplan, Mary K. Connelly, Bill Creevy, Teresa Dunn, Suzi Evalenko, Hank Feeley, Wendy Gittler, Rachel Gordon Bernstein, Tim Kennedy, Michele Liebler, Mari Lyons, Cynthia MacCollum, Rallou Malliarakis, Doretta Miller, Kathi Packer, Marianne Perry Salas, Tracy Powers, Nicole McCormick Santiago, Dana Saulnier, and Jane Shoenfeld.

Saturday in the City – Nicole McCormick Santiago at First Street Gallery

Nicole McCormick Santiago, Susan with Toys and Lollipops, oil on canvas, 24x38

Reminiscent of Wayne Thiebault’s bakery shop paintings, McCormick Santiago is painting pastry as still life.  There are bold pops of pinks, reds, and deliciously painted patterns, all immaculately rendered.  Interestingly enough the artist participates in some of her compositions mixing still life with self portraiture.  The artist paints herself with equal amounts of enthusiasm and articulation as paper plates, party cups, and cupcakes.  

McCormick Santiago’s careful calibration of whimsical color is exciting and expressive.  Her use of white color is outstanding.  There were easily a dozen shades of white in each piece but most spectacularly in Susan with Toys and Lollipops, oil on canvas, 24 x 38 inches.  The use of color as light and shape carried by the sensitivity of the brush strokes is pure brilliance.  Her still life paintings integrate seamlessly from the pastry shop to the nursery.  They share a similar palette, perfect drawing, and an engaging use of light, space, and unusual perspective.  Painting chops aside, McCormick’s innate sense of composition makes for irresistible paintings.  

Nicole McCormick Santiago, Cakes, Cupcakes, Lollipops,oil on canvas, 8x6

If it was the color and the composition of shapes that attract the viewer to the larger scaled works, the small scaled works have tripled the impact.  The fresh, immediate, and “quick” appearance of the small paintings would make any painter drool.  Gone is the careful glazing of layer after layer of meticulously applied paint and what is left is deft strokes of pure color capturing form and light all at once!  The painting is magical!  The dash, dot, dot, of a brush loaded with burnt clementine pigment transforms the end of a limb into a curled foot.  This is the kind of “blink and you miss it” mark making that is more like dancing with paint.  This is pure skill that comes from thousands of hours spent in the studio, honing your craft, taking risks, and painting for painting’s sake.  

The content of the paintings is also something worth spending time with.  McCormick Santiago’s paintings are about experiencing life, focusing on the positive, and taking the time to pause and see what is in front of her.  The saying goes: you eat with your eyes before your mouth.  This is possibly most true with desserts than other food group.  The special beauty of decorated cakes and pastries is homage to this truth.  McCormick Santiago is not only taking the time to “eat” with her eyes, the cake, but also objects that surround and make up the pieces of her life.  Cakes, forks and knives, a pretty table cloth, baby toys, tubes of paint, and herself and her child as “objects” participate in McCormick Santiago’s personal “meal.”  The tabletop is a representation of life and the still life paintings are the result of the artist “eating with her eyes” before she digs in and lives her life.  The paintings are a visual representation of a reminder to find enjoyment in every bit of it along the way.  

It is an especially loaded message from an artist, who also happens to be a woman, having her cake … and eating it, too.

This optimistic and deliciously painted show is up until June 15.  Check it out!

http://www.nicolemccormicksantiago.com/

http://www.firststreetgallery.net/

Friday in the City – Siobhan McBride at DC Moore Gallery

Friday in the City – Siobhan McBride at DC Moore Gallery

Siobhan McBride, Never while you're sleeping, gouache on paper on panel, 11.5x10, 2012

Sometimes it’s the little things that have the most impact.  In the back gallery of DC Moore there was a small group of artists hanging.  Siobhan McBride’s luminous gouache paintings drew me in like a honing beacon.  The rich, flat colors, bold patterns, and sophisticated application of paint, combined with precise rendering created a warmly lit and surprisingly cavernous interior in Never While You’re Sleeping.  McBride’s body work effortlessly created the fantastic illusion of form and depth of space. The slight tilt of perspective was engaging and added mystery.  

McBride’s sophisticated choices with color were engaging emotionally and academically.  The spectrum of deep, bottom of the ocean type blues, grays, and greens, balanced with warm golden yellows, oranges, and sanguine with hits of bright pure and neon colors created an absolutely gorgeous reverberation of illumination.  

The small scale of the work was a clever decision.  It required the viewer physically move closer and therefore have a more intimate experience with the painting than they might otherwise. The work had a dreamlike quality that instigates a feeling of déjà vu.  The experience of viewing McBride’s work is very much like revisiting dreams or elusive memories.   

More information: http://www.siobhanmcbride.com/  

http://www.dcmooregallery.com/exhibitions/2013-05-02_nearby-debra-bermingham-michael-cline-siobhan-mcbride-and-dushko-petrovich#works_4

Friday in the City – Robin Reynolds at Prince Street Gallery

Friday in the City – Robin Reynolds at Prince Street Gallery

Robin Reynolds, Elisabeth's Flowers, 46x46, oil mounted on board

The most fantastic paintings are the ones in which the process is transparent, the mark making is sincere, and bold color is celebrated.  Robin Reynolds’ paintings at Prince Street Gallery were all of those things.  The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the elevator was the saturated color in the abstracted square compositions of Reynolds’ garden paintings.  

The printed card does not show in any way the vibrancy of the permanent rose, red, and pinkish tangerine marks, or the cobalt strokes glowing against an emerald field.  The color is fresh and bright and had the hands of Reynolds masterful eye for color theory, the paintings have a dramatic impact.  The connectivity and interplay between neutrals and whites, cozying up to carefully calibrated complimentary colors appears to have been as much fun for Reynolds to paint as it is to see in person.  Upon closer inspection, the luminosity of the color was enhanced by the glossy and liquid texture of the paint.  Of all paint textures, glossy and liquid are my favorite!  The color glowed from the inside giving the paintings a masterful dual sense of light.  The transparency of the energetic and lithe gestured marks was fascinating because, underneath, linear, charcoal flowers bloom, giving the viewer a window in which to see Reynolds’ process.  The beautiful and fresh integration of drawing and painting elements are refreshing and exciting!  

The square compositions, many on stretched paper, were composed from Reynolds’ observation of the garden just outside her back door, in her backyard.  The concept of finding the source for the academic investigation and the exploitation of the fundamental elements to make great art just outside your backdoor is something I find to be irresistibly attractive.  The texture of a paper ground, in lieu of canvas, was also gorgeous.  

I am a little late in writing this and the show is down already but more information can be found at RobinReynolds.com. 

New Site for CT Art!

Check out the CT ArtList website!  I am featured on the artist page!  Make sure you check it out for exhibition opportunities, opening reception dates and times, and so much more!  It's a one stop for everything art happening in CT.  They are also always looking for more contributions so if you want to be featured or you want to publicize an event, just send them an email!