Contributed by Michael Brennan / “Fold Upon Fold,” the title of Hank Ehrenfried’s first solo exhibition in New York, at Auxier Kline on the Lower East Side, is an expression borrowed from a sonnet by French Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. It succinctly describes the creative premise behind every painting presented. Working in the trompe l’oeil style, Ehrenfried paints realistic images of his own collages, made mostly during the pandemic. Making the collages the subject of the paintings lends the show a lightly but distinctly meta character, reflecting both the claustrophobic intensity and the intellectual expansiveness of his endeavor.
Tag: collage
Anne Ryan�s small world
Contributed by Laurie Fendrich / The poet and artist Anne Ryan (1889�1954) accomplished the rare feat of making precious art � art that�s small, perfectly executed, and pretty � that is not the least bit treacly or sentimental. Drawn to both abstraction and surrealism, Ryan was a quiet player in the avant-garde visual art circles of the 1940s, attracting less attention than women artists like Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, and Grace Hartigan. Today she�s best known for her small collages, which she began after having a eureka moment at a Kurt Schwitters collage exhibition at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York in 1948.
Thomas Berding: Something wild
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / Thomas Berding�s insouciant show �Field Test,� at The Painting Center in Chelsea, is a smart, spirited consideration of the tension between the whirl and the pastoral. The seven paintings � and their witty titles � are straightforward enough to impart primary messages clearly, but that leaves […]
Hello Instagram: Mark Dicey in Calgary
Contributed by Giovanni Garcia-Fenech / Initially I resisted Instagram, thinking of it dismissively as a repository of selfies, sunsets, and celebrities, but, soured by Facebook and Twitter, I finally joined. Over the past four years I’ve come to appreciate IG for introducing me to a lot of terrific artists, many of whom never show […]