Contributed by Sharon Butler / Abstract painter Thomas Nozkowski was widely and deservedly recognized for making intimately scaled abstract paintings using an idiosyncratic visual language that was derived from the visual and emotional stimuli of everyday life. Since his death in 2019, I’ve often wondered who might be the next Nozkowski. Given the trend towards figuration, mixed-media surfaces, and massive scale, precious few painters seemed to be walking in his humble footsteps. Now we have Patricia Satterlee and Fran Shalom.
Shalom, who actually met and admired Nozkowski, has paintings on view at Kathryn Markel in a solo show titled “Taking the backward step” – an expression from the 13th century Japanese Zen master Eihei Dogen that refers to letting go of how we think things should proceed in order to focus on how things are in fact going. In the studio this translates into keeping the process improvisational and avoiding judgment in the moment. Consistently with this constraint, Shalom’s bulbous forms deftly conjure the kind of bold color and humorous line that Nozkowski teased out, though her images lean more into playful figuration.
In the meticulous paintings for her solo “RYB,” on view at Gold Montclair along with a distinct body of smaller work styled “Spaceland,” Satterlee focuses on the spaces in between objects, downplaying lightheartedness in of favor a serious, symbolic, and improbably moving mode of abstraction. “RYB” stands for “Row Your Boat,” and each painting is named after a different line of the children’s song. Each is crafted with a limited palette using a light touch. Whereas Satterlee’s previous work featured translucent layers and fragmented forms organized to create the illusion of deep space, the new paintings are keyed to adjacent shapes locked together like puzzle pieces. Light pencil lines delineate vague architectural spaces and patterns.
For mature artists who have spent much of their adult lives merrily merrily merrily alone in the studio, life can seem very much like a dream. But Shalom and Satterlee’s elegant paintings quietly defy that insularity, going “gently down the stream” to document and convey, as Nozkowski does, memory and experience.
“Fran Shalom: Taking the backward step,” Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, 529 West 20th Street, New York, NY. Through December 22, 2023.
“Patricia Satterlee: RYB + Spaceland,” Gold Montclair, 594 Valley Road, Courtyard, Montclair NJ. Through December 31, 2023.
About the author: Sharon Butler is a painter and the publisher of Two Coats of Paint.
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Sharon, your last paragraph was masterfully both charming and timely. Thank you.
Sharon, Its really wonderful to bring these artists into the fold and legend of Nozkowski. Nozkowski kept his paintings small so they could hang on anyone’s walls. In Fran’s work, I love the “implied” monumentality in her work, despite the actual modest scale of the paintings. Thanks for the review!
I loved specially the last paragraph too.. great review