Rebecca Morris likes to compartmentalize. Her paintings, smartly installed at Mary Boone’s Fifth Avenue location through February 25, feature symmetrically placed geometric shapes, sometimes collaged onto the surfaces of the large-scale canvases. Each of the shapes, large squares or circles,is divided into numerous smaller shapes that have been casually filled with improvised patterns, line, and brushwork. Morris’s paintings at first seem aligned with work by contemporary painters like, say, Trudy Benson, Lauren Silva, or Leah Guadagnoli, who use kitschy elements from ’80s graphics–stepped rules, drop shadows, squiggles, pastel palettes. But rather than evoking the gormless charm of this earlier era, Morris’s abstractions are confrontational and challenging
Author: Two Coats Staff
Studio visit: Fr�d�rique Lucien
Contributed by Sharon Butler /�Fr�d�rique Lucien�and I met�during the Bushwick iteration of “Deux C�t�s / Two Sides,” a�collaborative�exhibition organized by Stephanie Theodore and�Emilie Ovaere-Corthay, the […]
A studio visit with Sascha Braunig
Contributed by Rob Kaiser-Schatzlein / Sascha Braunig, whose solo show�“Shivers,”�is on view at MoMA PS1 through March 5,�recently returned�to New York City from Portland, Maine, […]
Francesco Clemente: Constantly beginning
Contributed by Sharon Butler / In Paris last week I stopped by Galerie Templon near the Centre Pompidou to see Francesco Clemente’s charming new paintings. […]
Godward and upward at SLAG
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Ben Godward is at home with bright colors and exotic shapes. The New York sculptor has for some time been […]
Marjorie Welish: Procedural difference, conceptual consequence
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Followers of post-election news coverage, despairing over rampant voter suppression, are bereft over the Electoral College electors’ unwillingness to cast their […]
Interview: Max Maslansky’s porn-painted sheets
Contributed by Rob Kaiser-Schatzlein / Max Maslansky is a Los Angeles painter who makes acrylic paintings on stretched pillowcases and bed sheets using imagery culled […]
Jacob Kassay: Familiarity superseding reflection?
Contributed by Sharon Butler/ In “H-L,” Jacob Kassay’s second�solo show at 303 Gallery, the artist has left behind�the silver-covered canvases for which he is best […]
Of note: Eric Brown, Suchness
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Eric Brown, co-director of Tibor De Nagy�Gallery,�has been a secret painter for years, and this month he had his first�NYC […]
Artists under duress: Max Beckmann
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Esteemed in Germany during the Weimar Republic but branded a “degenerate artist” by the anti-modern Adolf Hitler, the great expressionist […]
Zach Seeger’s surveillance
I asked Zach Seeger, artist and co-director of This Friday Or Next Friday, a small gallery space in DUMBO, why he paints eyes. “I began […]
Quote: Kerry James Marshall
“I don�t believe in hope,� Kerry James Marshall said�in a recent interview with Wyatt Mason in the NYTimes.��I believe in action. If I�m an apostle […]
Studio visit: John Zinsser
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Two Coats of Paint recently stopped in at John Zinsser‘s sunny Greenpoint studio. Zinsser moved to New York in the […]
Michael Ottersen: Logic and intuition
Contributed by Erin Langner / When I walked into Season last week, I almost stepped on Summer Reading, a painting by Michael Ottersen. To be […]
Email: The deCordova Museum’s 2016 Biennial
The deCordova Museum’s Biennial exhibition in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is one of the most prestigious group shows in New England. Curators Jennifer Gross (soon departing) and […]
Christopher Manning’s semblances and manipulations
Contributed by Laura Farrell / Through Christopher Manning�s current solo show “Everything as Perfect as it Seems,” the Fine Arts Gallery at Westchester Community College […]
A lobby symposium: Federico, Haske, Loft, Osman, Porcaro & Saltz
The Standard Motors Building in Long Island City is home to a spacious lobby gallery, organized and maintained by Deborah Freedman and Marjorie VanDyke. Freedman […]
Allison Schulnik’s frenzied equestrian feminisms
Contributed by Torey Akers / Allison Schulnik�s current solo show at ZieherSmith, “Hoof II,” posits personal mythology as a material condition for world-building. Each heavily […]
Katie Bell’s Miami adventure
Contributed by�Rob Kaiser-Schatzlein /� Katie Bell‘s work, comprising scavenged construction debris, skirts the line between sculpture and assemblage. Bell combed Miami for a month to […]
Julie Torres’ dispatches from Hudson, part 2
As promised in part one earlier this week, Julie Torres has sent her second report from Hudson‘s thriving gallery scene. Julie was a longtime – […]













































