Award-winning blogazine, primarily about painting
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Contributed by Riad Miah / “Bracing Against the Wind,” the title of Alyse Rosner’s solo exhibition at Rick Wester Fine Art, can be read literally and poetically. While her paintings depict dynamic elements of nature, they also reveal the intuitive hand of the artist. This allows the viewer to decode her process in making them, which includes rubbing, repetitive application, imparting decorative motifs, and more.
Contributed by Kathy Imlay / Heather Stivison’s paintings in “Seeds of Change: Paintings of Climate Change and Hope”, imply unseen possibilities for restoring the natural balance of our planet. In her first New York solo exhibition—on view at Pleiades Gallery in Chelsea through April 15, also and as an online exclusive with Imlay Gallery — Stivison explores the notion of seeds from both literal and metaphorical perspectives. She sees potential for change hidden within us as seeds buried in the ground, both filled with untapped promise.
Contributed by Astrid Dick / On December 18th, 2022, Argentina, my country of origin, won the FIFA World Cup in Qatar against France, my country of residence. It was perhaps the most epic and thrilling final in this international tournament’s history. Two months later, Argentina’s victory is still slowly settling in my mind. As time passes, I realize more than ever how football – or fútbol, soccer, calcio, etc – at its highest level is a collective practice that parallels the practice of art, where the individual and the team refine and adapt their senses and skill, where gestures leave their imprint in memory, and where a decisive move can determine the outcome.
Contributed by Margaret McCann / “At the Center of the Onion is Another Onion” is Polish painter Krzysztof Grzybacz’s first solo show at Harkawik. Sturdy yet subtle, his paintings are as elliptical as they are intense. Beyond unpeeling their complexity, his work offers consideration of a larger onion, that of figurative painting’s path through eastern Europe.
Contributed by Sharon Butler / As I walk through the dimly lit space behind an elegantly nostalgic bespoke clothing store on the Lower East Side, I feel as if I’ve landed in Desperately Seeking Susan, the iconic film starring Madonna that captured New York creative life of the 1980s. On the other side of a worn red curtain looms Riad Miah’s bright, busy studio. Confronting me is a plethora of colorful canvases, covered with writhing shapes, floating freely on irregular canvases.
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / This is a little late, but just in time for the Oscars. Filmmaking in the time of Covid is looking healthy, so no epochal disquisition is needed – just the usual caveat that these picks are inevitably subjective and, in some cases, perhaps eccentric.
Contributed by Jenny Zoe Casey / The two-person exhibition “as long as you want,” featuring work by Julia Blume and Heather Drayzen, on view at My Pet Ram on the Lower East Side, is perceptively based on the referenced fragment of poetry written by Sappho over two-and-a-half millennia ago as a reminder of love, endurance and adaptation, and complemented by a slyly kindred show of drawings. Work by Joshua Drayzen is also on view.
Contributed by Michael Brennan / Paul Mogensen dismisses the Renaissance. Not its considerable artistic achievements, of course, but rather its excessive emphasis within conventional art history. Mogensen is experiencing a renaissance himself with “Paintings: 1965-2022,” at Karma, a de facto mini-retrospective that includes 20 paintings and works on paper. Karma, a gallery known for its adventurous curatorial program and savvy publishing arm, has done a great deal more than most museums to sustain a variety of NYC-specific historical discourses since its inception in 2011. In the case of Mogensen, along with fabled colorist Robert Duran, Karma’s program is potentially the second coming of the legendary Bykert Gallery. This is a considerable achievement in a contemporary art world often characterized by “context collapse.”
Over 13 years ago, Two Coats of Paint noted Elizabeth Gourlay’s exhibition of abstract paintings in Chester, Connecticut. On the occasion of her outstanding solo exhibition of paintings and collages at the New Britain Museum of American Art, Two Coats took the opportunity to catch up with her.
Kahori Kamiya’s New York debut solo exhibition “Long Eclipse” at Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn is a powerful and personal exploration of her Japanese cultural identity and experience of womanhood. Through her works, Kamiya delves into her own existential and spiritual contemplations, reflecting on acutely personal experiences such as breastfeeding her baby, facing racial discrimination during the pandemic, and grieving the loss of her mentor.
Two Coats Obituaries
@galerieevapresenhuber invited the Swiss gallery @weissfalk to present “Found Refined Refound,” a clever group show that explores found objects and materials, reminding me of my favorite childhood books, How to Make Something From Nothing by Frank B. and Rubye Mae Griffith. Artists include Timothée Calame, Klara Lidén, Lorenza Longhi, Daniele Milvio, Sveta Mordovskaya, and Urban Zellweger. Two Coats particularly liked Lorenza Longhi’s absurdist-elegant approach: silver metallic silkscreened images of punch list text-graphics (“Problem:” “Action taken:”) on insulation panels and bolts of fabric, laid over aluminum stretcher-frames. Russian artist Sveta Mordovskaya’s trash-like assemblages that “tow the line between nest and grave” were unexpectedly poignant. Closes March 25.
#LorenzaLonghi @genossinbaum #SvetaMordovskaya #objecttrouvé #foundobjects #weissfalk #swissgalleries #howtomakesomethingfromnothing #frankbgriffith #rubyemaegriffith @lorenzzzzzzzza
Art on view in Brooklyn: @jessicaweisspaint “Present,” a solo show @490.atlantic / In her charming new paintings, Jessica Weiss continues to work with wallpaper as both a collage material and a source for painted and printed patterns. She’s gone in a figurative direction that leans into the quieter, more joyful aspects of life, while alluding to the loneliness and anxiety that lurks beneath the surface. On view through April 25.
Bio: A lifelong New Yorker, Weiss is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts' Fellowship and has had solo exhibitions at Outlet Fine Art (Bushwick, Brooklyn), A. M. Richard Fine Art (Brooklyn) and Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery (New York City). Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art in America, TimeOut NY, The Baltimore Sun, the New York Observer, and she has also been featured at Two Coats of Paint. Weiss has appeared in numerous group exhibitions including "Two Friends and So On" at Andrew Kreps, "Seaworthy" at Edward Thorpe, "Three Degrees of Separation" at Sonnabend Gallery, and "The Stroke" (selected by @elizabethmurrayart ) at Exit Art. The @allenartmuseum at Oberlin College recently acquired one of her paintings
#jessicaweiss #490atlantic #vintagewallpaper #collage #figurativepainting #brooklynartist #gowanusartist #postpandemicpaintings
Latest post, link in profile / Beautiful games: Football, art, beauty, spectacle / Contributed by Astrid Dick / On December 18th, 2022, Argentina, my country of origin, won the FIFA World Cup in Qatar against France, my country of residence. It was perhaps the most epic and thrilling final in this international tournament’s history. Two months later, Argentina’s victory is still slowly settling in my mind. As time passes, I realize more than ever how football – or fútbol, soccer, calcio, etc – at its highest level is a collective practice that parallels the practice of art, where the individual and the team refine and adapt their senses and skill, where gestures leave their imprint in memory, and where a decisive move can determine the outcome. Link in profile
#astriddick #worldcup #abstractpainting #mdavidandco #artistsnotebook @chastrida @mdavidco
Latest post, link in profile / Mining Krzysztof Grzybacz’s oblique gestalts / Contributed by Margaret McCann / “At the Center of the Onion is Another Onion” is Polish painter Krzysztof Grzybacz’s first solo show at Harkawik. Sturdy yet subtle, his paintings are as elliptical as they are intense. Beyond unpeeling their complexity, his work offers consideration of a larger onion, that of figurative painting’s path through eastern Europe. His visual lexicon, no doubt enriched by today’s digital culture, sidesteps the extroversion of much illustrational painting recently embraced by the New York art world. It also reflects the curvilinear, decorative folk art that helped shape Polish national identity long before Disney, underground comics, Outsider Art, Pixar, Pop Surrealism and the internet infiltrated American popular culture, then art. Link in profile
Image: Krzysztof Grzybacz, Meet, 2022, oil on canvas, 63 x 51 ¼ inches
#polishartist #harkawik #lesgalleries #margaretmccann #KrzysztofGrzybacz @krzysztofgrzybacz @margaret_mccann_art @harkawik #twocoatsofpaint
Student picks, great day. These are for the photo crowd out there.
_Repost_ @moonicahamilton Uta Barth, Tina Barney, Larry Sultan, Cy Gavin, Julia Blume, Franz West
Hopped, jumped, and skipped around the Chelsea galleries today with @sharon_butler @twocoatsofpaint and @uconnmfainstudioart — these are my highlights 💫
