In the LA Times, Holly Myers writes that “the paint — presumably dry, but only recently so — fills the room with a lush, heady scent that seems to seep into one’s very pores, enveloping the viewer in the work’s exceptionally visceral presence….The forms are abstract but made, in large part, from a limited range of specific gestures, each with its own sculptural identity: the push-and-smear, the palette-knife slather, the spiky daub, the loose swirl of multiple colors. Each composition has the feel of a self-contained ecosystem, with these gestures interacting like so many individual species, the whole governed by a sense of organic, if somewhat chaotic, logic. The twists and turns of the pigment itself — the glossy ridges, gouged furrows, smooth planes and prickly briars — are endlessly absorbing: liable to draw a viewer to within a foot of the canvas and to tug the eye through a long series of close-range excursions, especially in the case of the larger works. Step back, however, and it’s clear that these details acquire their power from a formidable structural integrity. The spontaneous clusters of small blots that hold one’s attention in the short term cleave barnacle-like to slower, heavier forms that keep the compositions firmly grounded. Seemingly decorative details are swept up in grander architectural gestures. Patches of dense, frenetic activity open up to broad swaths of negative space that lend each composition the balance and stability of a landscape.” Read more.
“Dennis Hollingsworth,” Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Through May 31.
