Author: Two Coats Staff

Solo Shows

Jane Swavely: Admiration for the jungle

Contributed by Mira Dayal / There is a sense of unease in the series of paintings that comprise of “Espial,” Jane Swavely’s latest show at A.I.R. Gallery. I enter the space — not of the gallery, but of the painting itself. Hovering just inches above the ground, the edges of the canvas become the frame of a doorway, beyond which thick brush conceals a dark forest. But the tall grass of Werner’s Painting (2015) is not entirely still; as Werner Herzog himself says of the jungle, in Burden of Dreams (1982), “There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony, as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle.”

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Studio Visit

Interview: Leslie Smith III in Madison, Wisconsin

I took a trip to Madison, Wisconsin, in December, when the sky was gray but before the temperature had turned bitter. My guide was Leslie Smith III, a 2009 Yale MFA graduate with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art who will have paintings on display at VOLTA next week with beta pictoris gallery / Maus Contemporary. Smith is an assistant professor of drawing and painting at University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has a generous studio in the art building on campus. During my visit, he showed me his new paintings, which are purely abstract, comprising multi-panel shaped canvases, vivid, high-key color, and wobbly geometric shapes. We talked about the painting process, his shift to shaped canvases, and his transition from figurative work to abstraction.

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Group Shows

The Painting Center: When color matters

Contributed by Sharon Butler / Color is slippery. Anyone who has ever tried to translate a casually observed color into pigment on canvas knows that the hue will never be the same as what he or she remembers. Variables like light and shadow change the same basic color from warm to cool, light to dark. And, as Albers taught us, chromatic context is also a critical factor. The lively exhibition, “Color Matters,” at The Painting Center, comprises paintings by thirteen artists for whom the exploration of color’s transience is a driving force.

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