Contributed by Marjorie Welish / A Berlin-based Japanese artist well-established abroad, Leiko Ikemura is now having her first exhibition in the United States at Fergus McCaffrey in Chelsea. The show presents a range of her works to fine effect, including masks, figurines in terracotta, and others in cast glass. Her drawing and painting are of particular note. Ikemura pulls together antithetical forces to keep the drawing painterly, and the painting grounded in gestural drawing.
Tag: Marjorie Welish
Morgan Fisher’s non-conformity: Measured and potent
Contributed by Marjorie Welish / There’s formalism and then there is formalism. In his solo show at Bortolami Gallery, Morgan Fisher excels at both. He is faithful to the modernist credo of line, plane, and color synthesized through composition. But he is also intent on making his work serve logical propositions generated from the practice of painting itself. This conceptual formalism is his domain, and it rewards close attention. Fitful likes and dislikes begone!
Fernanda Fragateiro: Commemorative abstraction
Contributed by Marjorie Welish / The clearest innovation of Portuguese artist Fernanda Fragateiro�s poignant�exhibition, on view at Jos�e Bienvenu through November 4, is the enlistment of industrial design to draw attention to women�s contributions to the arts. Custom-made acrylic boxes containing books hang from the gallery wall here and there. […]
Rafa�l Rozendaal: Post-internet giddy
Contributed by Marjorie Welish / Rafa�l Rozendaal‘s “Anti-Social” is polyglot, and speaks all at once. Stretched on a support for canvas is a Jacquard textile that professes both web information and an�intuitively arrived at design compatible with painting. The basis for these compositions is�the internet screen; and although stripped of […]
Marjorie Welish on Leslie Roberts at Minus Space
Contributed by Marjorie Welish / American artists may over-esteem the vernacular as the only true democratic mode. But occasionally a vernacular mythopoesis really inspires a good body of art. Leslie Roberts is a scavenger of found lexicons�code-able idioms in daily use on commonplace themes. From such source data she transcribes letters into colored graphic […]