Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / I have known Gideon Bok’s paintings from before I knew Gideon. Like many of his musical idols, he has an unusual cult following that eagerly awaits the twists and turns in his work, which manages to maintain a thematic focus while, at the same time, […]
Tag: figurative
Susan Rothenberg: Hope and discontent
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Susan Rothenberg�s invariably forceful and confident paintings have a beguiling twitchiness, created out of layers of agitated brushwork from a restless hand. In her latest solo at Sperone Westwater, she continues to embrace a non-serial approach, presenting paintings and drawings of various objects and animals […]
Amanda Church: The contemporary gaze
Contributed by Adam Simon / One of the under-appreciated aspects of art viewing is the way that a given work establishes a certain relationship with a viewer. Mark Rothko famously claimed that �lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures.� He may have been trying to […]
William Powhida�s inquisition
Contributed by Jonathan Stevenson / For a while it looked as though William Powhida might be painting himself into an existential corner. His mission was to sensitize his audience to the hypocritical churn of the art market � to the reality that what made producing something putatively nobler and loftier than […]
Caroline Wells Chandler: Pied Piper of weirdness
Contributed by Jennifer Coates / I met Caroline Wells Chandler when he was an MFA student at Yale, and we immediately connected in a lunatic mind-meld way. Together, our imaginations sparked, and last year we collaborated on �Electric Mayhem,� a two-person exhibition at Crush Curatorial inspired by the band on The Muppet Show. For […]
Emilia Olsen: Visions of paint and flesh
Contributed by Katie Hector / Emilia Olsen�s paintings, on view in “There is Another Sky� at Arts + Leisure through May 12, spark curiosity. Channeling vulnerability through evocative subject matter, the artist leads viewers down a rabbit hole in pursuit of a mysterious female figure who meanders in and out of the […]
Interview: Delphine Hennelly at Carvalho Park
Contributed by Sangram Majumdar / A few�weeks ago, on a crisp Sunday afternoon, I met Delphine Hennelly at Carvalho Park where her paintings are on display in �History Lessons,� a two-person show that includes woven pieces by Mimi Jung. �We talked about the performative nature of painting, the importance of […]
Vincent Desiderio: Painting as a theoretical vanguard
Contributed by Barbara Kerstetter /�Vincent Desiderio is a powerful, unique voice in the contemporary art world. His�paintings have commanded an international following for more than two decades. Born in Philadelphia in 1955, Desiderio�graduated from Haverford College, where he studied painting and art history. Today he�is�a senior critic at the New […]
Dana Schutz, jogging alongside the train wreck
Contributed by Zach Seeger / In her new work on view at Petzel through February 23, Dana Schutz finds herself wielding the brush of post recession rapture painting, a condition of exhaustive, Beckett-like inevitability where the steady drip of bad news informs our social media feeds. She imagines the world outside her studio, empathizing with […]
Farley Aguilar�s screamingly urgent figurative paintings
Contributed by Sharon Butler / Farley Aguilar�s paintings, on view at Lyles & King, are based on vintage photographs of 1920s and �30s seaside beauty pageants and images of female Nazi collaborators having their heads shaved after World War II. The contrast is jarring at first but fits into an […]