In the heart of the bustle, on Troutman Street, stop by map #144 to see Claire Lachow’s eerie inks on paper.  At a glance these black and white paintings may seem like straightforward studies of abstract composition and gesture, but you quickly notice a swirl of smudged faces emerging from the weightless ovals that populate the work.  Farther North you’ll find #75 at 41 Varick Street, a delight for those interested in process, abstraction, installation and unconventional materials. Here you will meet Will Hutnick, Nikki Nolan, Caitlin Peluffo, Polly Shindler and Kelly Worman.  Between these artists, visitors will likely come across glitter, faux fur, velvet, spray paint and gobs of tape in addition to oil and acrylic.

Studios are open this Saturday and Sunday, noon to 7 pm.

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This past Sunday I met DeShawn Dumas, an artist who lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The dreary day had no impact on his upbeat manner as we walked toward his studio on Flushing Avenue.  After he stopped me from entering oncoming traffic, he walked on the more dangerous side of the sidewalk [directly next to the street], because “that’s how my mother raised me,” he said with a smile.  Arriving in one piece, I sat down in a chair upholstered with hot pink chiffon facing two of his newest paintings.

Dumas’s diamond-shaped abstract works present the viewer with lofty concepts rooted firmly in both historical materialism and art historical interests. The initial surface of his paintings is composed of translucent scrims of chiffon, fiberglass window screens, geometric pieces of steel, and brightly colored layers of vinyl. These banal and industrial materials are suspended above a canvas support. It is on this foundational (canvas) substratum that Dumas engages in a ritualistic application of socio-historical substances:  flour, coffee grinds, sugar, and pages from the King James Bible.  Formally speaking, Dumas’s paintings or self-described “vehicles” emphasize the flatness of the picture plane, while still asserting the sculptural concreteness of these visual objects.  In a way Dumas’s vehicles reference polygon modalities of Constructivist painting and the architectonic qualities of Minimalism.  However, due to the use of translucent material, seemingly flat areas of color eventually permit the viewer’s gaze to pass into the depths of these wall works.

Dumas turned to art after realizing that a career in education would not give him the autonomy he sought. Never having painted before, he entered the BA program at Indiana University and was accepted into their more challenging BFA program just one semester later.  It was not long, however, before Dumas again realized that his interests and his studies did not align.  Indiana University’s traditional program taught Dumas invaluable lessons about composition, line, color and other traditional artistic skills but he learned very little about ways to incorporate his experiences into art beyond representational mimesis.Explaining why Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Annunciation (1898) struck him, Dumas says: “The angel was all light, there was no figuration—the first paintings I made were like that…I painted my mom and my nephew with this Renaissance pose and this glowing light. But I was dissatisfied; it didn’t do anything for me. I guess it didn’t have a concreteness for me.” This tension between art and reality started to crystallize at a group exhibition featuring his professors’ work.  The reception took place the same week Hurricane Katrina came ashore.  “We didn’t talk about Katrina at all, we just talked about the art. This was weird because I was constantly being shown images of a devastated citizenry on TV, and this disconnect provided insight into the function of the gallery space as a ‘non-space’ which seems to exist in a type of vacuum.”

Thereafter, Dumas began to incorporate non-art materials like coffee, sand, and flour into his art; going against his professor’s (good-natured) wishes—“you can’t use sand, it’s not archival” was a typical rebuttal.  But traditional paints and brushes didn’t let Dumas connect with the visceral sensations of lived experience. At the time he was unaware of artists like Anselm Kiefer, who he came across in 2006. “That’s when I became excited about art, I understood that there was art outside of romantic rendering; I saw that the trauma of existence could be aestheticized.”

The final break with his traditional art education arose around the onset of the Israeli/Lebanon war in 2006. “I was following the underground media that was covering it, but that was it, nowhere else was there even talk of it.  I thought—if human life can be destroyed, and be destroyed in a way that’s unnoticed, why would I put so much time and be so careful making a painting? So I started burning my paintings and making these charred landscapes.” This shift toward non-traditional art materials and politically motivated abstraction kept growing. Luckily for him, from 2008 to 2010 Marco the super of his Washington Heights apartment building allowed him to use the basement as a studio.  For two years he didn’t touch a brush or use paint.  Instead, “I would just use fire and my hands.” After entering Pratt’s MFA program in 2010 his work rapidly shifted from semester to semester. In the fall semester of 2011 his artistic experimentation went full circle as he returned to painting modular monochromes with isolated passages of burnt landscape-like material. Although Dumas had gradually become comfortable with allowing his personal concerns and frames of reference to enter the work in oblique ways, he says, “I still had not liberated myself from a prescribed or tasteful use of color and the tradition of art history.”  He recalls the time when he avoided the bright, saturated colors found in his current paintings, opting instead for a more meditative palette.  Even though he speaks fondly of the calming and alchemic process of making monochrome oil paintings, he wasn’t sure what he was offering the viewer, and how honest he was being about his own aesthetic and psychic sensibilities.

“The world isn’t a monochrome landscape, at least not New York City, not for me. The world isn’t this meditative place. It’s liminal,  flickering, moving, hard, sometimes soft, sometimes giving, it’s a complex and intense situation. So at a certain point I felt that my subtle oil paintings were feigned, a nostalgic homage of how I envision the world or art or some metaphysical space to be. But my world has never been soothing and subtle and I doubt the world has ever been like the paintings I use to make. You read what Kandinsky says in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, ‘Our minds, which are even now only just awakening after years of materialism, are infected with the despair of unbelief, of lack of purpose and ideal.’  So this was written in the early 20th century in Moscow, I mean, what would Kandinsky write about materialism in 21st century Dubai?  My return to bright colors was the realization that I do like dramatic colors, whether it’s the electric glow of Times Square or the flamingo halo of a setting sun; I do see bright colors and I’m going to use bright colors and not feel that only unsophisticated people use bright colors.  You know, Jeff Koons was someone I never let myself like— but, I do, I actually like him.  I went to his show that just opened and it’s amazing.  Especially the steel balloon sculptures. They’re huge and you just walk around them. Even though you realize they’re sort of absurd things—verisimilitudes of balloons, but you also feel you’re looking at the curves of a body. You’re looking through these cavities and negative spaces and at your reflection. It’s a liminal and even erotic experience…so I’ve being trying to let him and other experiences into my artistic practice that I had previously disallowed. I really had to understand how to fail and how to laugh at myself and get over myself.  These realizations came when I stopped looking at and judging what was outside of me and directed my gaze inward. This was an excoriating process that revealed a side of me that is definitely profane, you know, that definitely likes the shiny and superficial. I had to develop the ability to challenge my convictions. Essentially, I had to overcome my fear of the world and let my enthusiasm for the moment shine through.”

A turning point for the artist came when he started veiling silk over burnt canvases. Dumas’s use of the veil strains the eye and forces it to slow down as it searches to see what’s underneath the surface.  This gives his static objects a sense of duration through time.  For example in The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth (as they are buried beneath it) (2013), obfuscated Bible passages seem to emerge from a gaseous atmosphere. The pages are not randomly selected.  Raised Pentecostal, Dumas was enthralled by the dramatic intonation of his Uncle’s sermons, which often revolved around God’s convent with man and potential damnation or salvation.  “As a child I was obsessed with the end-time or eschatological prophecies and perplexed when I attempted to imagine the finality of infinity and the contradictions of God’s vengeance and God’s unconditional love.” Turning the square canvas into a diamond imparts a sense of rotation that is grounded in this early preoccupation with infinity. The diamond becomes Dumas’s “graphic symbol for the universe and the ceaseless flux of existence.” Dumas also says, “I want my vehicles to have an ontology of their own, a type of binary presence that conveys contradictions simultaneously:  dread, attraction, mystery and clarity. Or what the German theologian Rudolph Otto calls a numinous consciousness.”  Dumas’s process and output oscillates between the abstract and the profane. His philosophical thoughts don’t interrupt his experience of reality, and his paintings reflect a balance between these dualities.

Before my studio visit concluded we had a chance to talk about LaToya Ruby Frazier, an artist Dumas admires for her ability to mix strong aesthetics with political and social concerns.  “She is a contemporary artist I like a lot; her work is very personal and open. I think her work is an exceptional form of social practice.  Maybe one day I will do something that is more socially relative, but for now I’m excited and comfortable about my art practice.  The great thing about aesthetics is that it amounts to your subjectivity confronting another person’s subjectivity. And you can sort of think whatever you want. No one can say if you are wrong or right.”

DeShawn Dumas: Future Primitive, on view May 31 through June 30 at Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, 205 Norman Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11222, 718-383-9380

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There is a welcoming demeanor to Greg Goldberg’s bright, airy Manhattan studio that compliments his own as he places canvas after canvas on the wall and explains his process.  He observes how color changes with different light throughout the day.  The linen texture of his square oil paintings gives each piece a natural grid structure as he slowly builds the compositional architecture of each work.  Combining loose, geometric blocks with sweeping, gestural brush strokes, the dynamic and free form shapes are applied with a veiled precision.  This apparent ease actually emerges from intense deliberation about what colors should be placed next to another, and how the moods of different parings harmonize or develop tension.

His influences range across art history: Brice Marden, Emil Nolde, Peter Paul Rubens.  He doesn’t necessarily seek out these particular artists.  Rather, their work has become a part of his visual consciousness simply out of years of random exposure: he found himself in the depths of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in front of Peter Paul Rubens’s Wolf and Fox Hunt (c. 1616) one day, for instance, because his four-year-old son loves the enormous hunting scene.

His father, an architect, is another formative family member. “His buildings are rigorous yet sensual, where there’s order but love of materials at the same time. That philosophy infuses my own thinking about painting.”

The discovery of artists have proven to be turning points in his development.

Spending a semester in Italy, I discovered the paintings of Pontormo. I had a very powerful, visceral reaction to the color and composition of his works. The color was really carrying the emotional experience of the painting. Later on, I saw a Rothko retrospective at the Whitney, with some late violet paintings. There was a feeling of being immersed in the color space of the paintings. Then there was a Donald Judd show of plywood wall pieces with a few Plexiglas inserts at Pace. It was a perfect marriage of material and design. They were so simple and straightforward yet everything was so exquisitely done. Plywood never looked so good. At that point, I realized I was more interested in the experience that non-narrative abstract work was giving me.

Elements from these predecessors combine in work devoid of overt subject matter.  NYC 6/28-12/24 (2012) is an example that evokes the colors of Die Brücke, the smooth surfaces of Old Masters, and the luminosity of Mark Rothko; while Goldberg exclusively focuses on capturing natural light through color.

This intense, pared-down focus is relatively new.  After graduating from Skidmore College in 1996, he worked with the figure for years before deciding to start from scratch about 10 years ago. This shift toward abstraction did not come easily.  It took years for him to find comfort within this new practice.  One reason for the difficulty was that he received very positive feedback from his Surfer series.  The Museum of Modern Art purchased eight of these early paintings during a group exhibition at Rivington Arms in 2003.

I was thrilled, but it was also a little strange because I had already decided to stop making representational work and had began making abstract paintings. I was starting the process of reinventing myself and trying to find what I felt was a more authentic identity as a painter. So to get such a positive response but to be doing something entirely different was difficult.

The link between the two bodies of work is the attention to light. In Surfers, a white-hot sun reflecting off the beach shines on men’s faces, and we see the sun’s effects upon extremely tanned skin.  Each surfer squints, smiles, or stares out beyond the paper. The time of day is evident in each.

Another activity that Goldberg depicted was motocross. The sports imagery attracted him for a few reasons:

With the motocross imagery I was interested in turning tiny cutouts from magazines into very-large and iconic paintings. The color, composition and paint-handling were the means to achieve this. I’ve never surfed, but in high school Point Break was one of my favorite movies. I think the whole fantasy of surfing (as well as mountain biking) and trying to capture some of the idealism interested me. With the surfers, the light in the drawings and color limits (only pure acrylic color diluted with water, no actual mixing, only optical mixing) were important.

In his current work, drawing allows Goldberg to quickly experiment with his optical interests outside of the studio.  He was encouraged to draw by his friend Michael Toenges, a German painter.  After spending six weeks in New York, Toenges gave Goldberg some leftover gouaches. “One afternoon, when my son was napping, I made a drawing. It was a great experience. It allowed me to work through ideas quickly. My paintings are done over several months while a drawing takes about two hours. I could see new color combinations quicker.” He keeps a set of gouache paints packed in a box, with the right paper and brushes alongside to easily bring his work to a new location.

Location and the time of year are two primary factors in Goldberg’s color choices.  Once you notice the titles—which typically include location and date when the painting was made—the subtle shifts in mood become apparent.  Some are made in his parent’s Connecticut backyard, others were completed in the Dominican Republic.  You can feel the difference.

The largest paintings are worked inside his North-facing studio. Fortunately a parking lot—not a skyscraper—is adjacent to his studio building, allowing for abundant light to stream through one wall of glass.  His workspace is impressively tidy, and not just because of my visit.  Glancing around, you’ll notice that every jar is labeled and dated, the brushes are arranged by size and drawings are stacked by date.  This organization outside of the paintings is necessary to complete the organization within.  Goldberg’s work is an accumulation of thin glazes, and each layer contributes to the painting’s final effect.  The first layers that ultimately get buried still hold a bearing on the final tonal relationships, so Goldberg keeps a guide to track each work’s progress.  He neatly brushes each color to a corresponding paper guide. It’s fascinating to compare final images with these accompanying swatches. They keep a strict, chronological log of each painting as Goldberg builds on the history of his daily experience with light.

Greg Goldberg: Northern Light, on view April 17 through May 31 at Stephan Stoyanov Gallery, 29 Orchard Street, New York, NY, 10002, 212-343-4240 

The post The Color of Light: A Studio Visit with Greg Goldberg appeared first on artcritical.

February 13 to March 23, 2013
525 West 19th Street , between 10th and 11th avenues
New York City, 212 727 2070

Being in Suzan Frecon’s show at David Zwirner is a bit like entering a conversation unnoticed.  Her small watercolors and painted panels, each holding their own on the wall, banter with confidence.  While they don’t exactly clamor for attention, their loose shapes and lush colors are gently alluring.

The show exudes a variety of sensations: somber and lighthearted, depressed and playful.  Overall, however, bright pops of yellow, blue, and the occasional green keep the muted browns and burnt reds from overwhelming.  With shapes that are neither quite organic or geometric Frecon achieves resoundingly strong composition. red blue blue (2012), for instance, a two-toned, horizontal watercolor, fills its old Indian paper support with ink, conflating common formal binaries such as  background/foreground, positive/negative space, or representation/abstraction.  The orientation and earthy colors suggest a landscape, but the paint application doesn’t contain enough detail to confirm that impression.  For Frecon this is deeply important as she has spoken of her striving to eliminate associations from her imagery—in much the way as the Minimalists did, except in her case the results are not sterile.  I would argue that Frecon has much more emotional breadth than, say, Donald Judd or Dan Flavin, on view at David Zwirner’s new 20th street space.

Compositions like horizontally extended orange (patched) (2011) are unhindered by the paper: the small scale does not negate expansiveness.  Others, however, especially those where colored shapes do not reach the paper’s edge, can seem restrictive.  In any event, thanks to Frecon’s use of old handmade Japanese, Chinese, and Indian papers, no watercolor is overly pristine.  The edges are not quite straight; there are dings and small holes; some are cockled even.  But her paper invariably has a soft, wise character in tune with the spiritual quality of her imagery.

Seemingly loose contours obscure a highly deliberative process. painting plan drawing for a large painting (2004) reveals a premeditated approach to every stage in the evolution of a painting.  A light pencil grid orients the delicate balance of straight and curved lines.  Frecon seems to approach the paper like a canvas.  Instead of allowing the ink to bleed with unpredictable fluidity, she chooses a shape and paints evenly and flat.  Occasionally the ink pools or the paper resists, but otherwise there is no gesture, gradation, or depth.

Frecon tirelessly pursues her restricted lexicon of shapes and strategies.  Within such constraints it is difficult to resist ranking panels over works on paper of similar composition—but this is an unfair bias.  In both formats, Frecon uses a sparse palette of reds and oranges that showcases her nuanced understanding of color.  But on closer examination, a panel like version o, dark to light (2008) actually predates a few wrongly assumed “studies”.

Whether they let you into their conversation or not, you feel contented in the company of Frecon’s paintings. Their purposeful tensions aren’t heavy handed or solemn.  They are peaceful and soothing, even optimistic, as they echo and mingle with one another.

The post Holding Their Own: Suzan Frecon’s Works on Paper appeared first on artcritical.

You can get lost in the mind of Jill Nathanson. In her captivating seven-piece series, the air we swim in, overlapping planes of translucent color generate expansive surfaces rich with free-form shapes.  These ethereal paintings seem weightless in the way they evoke slow, sliding movement.  She paints “the world of things,” in her own words, but her abstraction is assuredly non-objective.  Bowtie (2012) has the closest visual connection between an object’s tangibility and Nathanson’s depiction of it.  Two triangular orange planes converge at a minute point.  She is fond of such compositional devices, allowing a mixture of soft and energetic colors to develop into a heightened moment of alluring tension.  Just when we’re immersed in the deep layers of polymer resin, patches of acrylic bring us back to reality.

Jill Nathanson, Bowtie, 2012. Synthetic Polymer and Acrylic on Panel, 18 x 18 inches. Courtesy of the Artist and Messineo Art Projects/Wyman Contemporary

Remains on view through December 20 at  511 West 25th Street, Suite 504, between 10th and 11th avenues, New York City, 212-414-0827

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