Award-winning blogazine, primarily about painting
Thursday, March 30, 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 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 Riad Miah / Athens, Georgia-based painter Ridley Howard’s new body of work, now on display at his third solo show at Marinaro, continues to explore relationships between figuration and abstraction with a refined pop sensibility, easing effortlessly between small and larger formats. The gallery’s abundant new space on Broadway is ideal, allowing viewers to absorb shifts in scale and reflect on contrasting elements, which Howard now seems to have fully resolved and mastered.
Contributed by Riad Miah / The eleven oil paintings in Fran O’Neill’s solo show “Left Turn” at Equity Gallery traffic in vivid, vibrant gestures of color that form softly curved, ribbon-like shapes. While they bring to mind artists like James Nares, Karin Davie, and David Reed, O’Neill’s energetic but self-consciously controlled brushstrokes and honed sense of color and light more directly suggest instants of becoming or emergence. Reaching back so full-bloodedly to revisit gestural painting, and to exploit the expressive potential of abstraction and the flexibility of its formal attributes, somehow seems heroic.
Contributed by Riad Miah / Theresa Hackett’s Around the Bend, her second solo show at High Noon Gallery and first at its new location, could also be titled Inside and Out. The inventive installation allows the viewer to weave through her four 72 x 48 inch double-sided, mixed-medium paintings, which […]
Contributed by Riad Miah / Emerging from lockdown, Massey Klein Gallery on the Lower East Side has reopened its doors, if only by appointment, with two new exhibitions featuring three artists. Claire Lieberman and Louis Reith�s works are shown together in �Elemental� while Bethany Czarnecki has a separate exhibition of […]
Contributed by Riad Miah / Taylor Anton White and Andy Woll�s solo exhibitions opened at two galleries next door to each other in Tribeca, White�s at Monica King Contemporary and Woll�s at Denny Dimin Gallery. Their bodies of work are outwardly different, but they are both visually as well as […]
Contributed by Riad Miah / �Just Hold On,� the title of Gary Petersen�s second show at McKenzie Fine Arts on the Lower East Side, fits the arresting energy of his work, his playful palette, and the rich provenance of his geometric abstractions. Perhaps he is referring to the moment a person […]
Contributed by Riad Miah / Dennis Hollingsworth�s exhibition �Burgeoning,� the artist�s first solo show at Gallery Richard on the Lower East Side, comprises conventional paintings from as early as 2014 and newer ones that move decisively into three dimensions. Without adding solvents, Hollingsworth massages paint from the tube to a creamy […]
Contributed by Riad Miah / In �The Gate,�Jason Stopa’s fourth New York solo and his first one-person show at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, the artist has painted a lattice-like pattern on a bright yellow wall and hung his canvases to look as if they are hanging on a chainlink […]
Two Coats Obituaries