Contributed by Margaret McCann / As though having carefully observed the painter paint them, Israeli painter Yedidya Hershberg’s figures, on view at Sugarlift, appear to now scrutinize the viewer.
Recent Posts
GJ Kimsunken: Abstraction and the figure
Contributed by Michael Brennan / I first saw GJ Kimsunken’s work in person last fall in an exhibition at Yi Gallery titled “Where We Meet Ourselves.” Sensibly pairing his paintings with Debra Ramsay’s, the two-person exhibition mainly investigated light and materiality. With his solo exhibition “Figuration,” the gallery, which is in the emerging art corridor of Industry City in South Brooklyn, has mounted another striking and sensitive show, making optimal use of its studio-sized space. Kimsunken has largely maintained his method and approach while illuminating the substantive inflection and character of his work.
Hudson Valley Selected Gallery Guide: August, 2022
In August the party continues beyond Upstate Art Weekend, with a slew of interesting shows throughout the Hudson Valley region. On August 13th, I’ll be up in Hillsdale, NY (north of Millerton, west of Great Barrington) for the opening of “Guided by voices,” a group show at LABspace that includes work by me, Yura Adams, Lucy Mink, and Adrian Meraz. Please stop by from 1-5 to say hello!
NYC Selected Gallery Guide: August, 2022
Contributed by Sharon Butler / August is the laziest month in New York. Everyone takes a breath, some leave town, and others gear up for their September shows. That said, there is still plenty to see, usually in air-conditioned comfort. And, because gallerists are understandably loath to open new shows at the end of August, many existing ones get extended beyond announced closing dates.
A conversation with Jamie Allen
Contributed by Mary Shah / Jamie Allen and I initially met as colleagues at Alexandre Gallery last fall, and we quickly became fans of each other’s paintings. We sat down recently to discuss her residency at New York Studio School (NYSS) DUMBO Studio that began in August 2021 and is culminating with a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper at the residency program’s gallery.
Undercurrent: Hibernation and emergence
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / While a degree of pandemic fatigue is understandable, there’s no denying that lockdown was an extraordinary fact of daily life whose ripple effects have far from dissipated. And insofar as it left artists with more time to think and work, it has yielded an abundance of resonant art. Jillian McDonald’s and Kate Teale’s drawings, now on view at Undercurrent Gallery in Dumbo, are sterling examples.
Revelation and reality at Greene Naftali
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / In “Sense of Place” at Greene Naftali Gallery, ten artists unflinchingly explore the nuances of transition, from epiphany to revolution, from getting lost to just moving on. The show is incisively curated and genuinely cohesive.
Dana Sherwood’s wildness and domesticity
Contributed by Kari Adelaide / Dana Sherwood’s exhibition “Animal Appetites and Other Encounters in Wildness,” on view at the Florence Griswold Museum, embraces domesticity and wildness, method and chaos, human and animal, the ordinary and the magic. Captured in night-vision infrared, Sherwood’s work turns on her appreciation of nature and fantasy alike and her generosity towards the fauna we live with.
Lisa Corinne Davis and Shirley Kaneda: Different strokes
Contributed by David Carrier / In the charming traditional galleries of the Studio School, Shirley Kaneda displays six large, vertically-oriented acrylic paintings. Lisa Corinne Davis presents seven oil works of various sizes. Where Kaneda organizes her pictures with playful vertical stripes of high-pitched pale blue or pink, Davis’ pictures are based on grids, disrupted to form swelling nets that enclose but do not entirely capture her forms, which are underneath. These bodies of work thus reveal two distinctly different strategies for pictorial composition. In traditional terms, Kaneda is a painterly artist, a colorist, while Davis works like a draftsperson, in a linear style. Art-historically speaking, if Kaneda renders exquisitely refined images reminiscent of Juan Gris or Sophie Tauber-Arp, Davis maps the structure of the city grid in ways that recall Julia Mehretu.
Arctic journal: Retreating glaciers and uncanny songs
Contributed by Frank Webster / The High Arctic has always fascinated me. Since falling in love with Barry Lopez’s classic Arctic Dreams some two decades ago, I have dreamed of visiting the far north. So I was very excited to receive word that I had been accepted for the Arctic Circle expedition. A couple of pandemic postponements later, I finally was able to go on the voyage in June of 2022.
