Computers and Art, Susan English’s Lyrical Polymer Pours
I have so many late-blooming members on Vasari21 that it’s beginning to seem almost a cliché—but let’s regard it as an homage to post about another in the first days of spring. The pattern works like this: The artist shows early promise or at least a compelling interest in some aspect of the visual arts. Next step is a fine-arts education, possibly an MFA. Maybe there’s some initial success—affiliation with a gallery, inclusion in important shows. And then life intervenes: there are marriages and children, and jobs to pay the bills. Art gets back-burnered for a spell (and possibly the earlier work wasn’t looking all that strong and original anyway). Then the true artist self emerges after a period of incubation, the work starts to feel genuine, and the career is back on track.
Susan English, profiled this week in Under the Radar, really started to “cook” once her kids were off to college and after exposure to the art at the then-new Dia:Beacon near her home in Cold Spring, NY. She had an “aha” moment when she discovered the rich effects she could get from pouring layers of polymer paint. The upshot, in just the last few years, has been a seductive fusion of spare geometries with dense but lyrical floods of color. You can see the work and read about her trajectory here.
Susan English, Glance (2018), tinted polymer on aluminum and wood panel , 48 by 38 inches
As I write in “The Soul of the New Machines,” I haven’t been much interested in anything that smacks of digital production after seeing the much ballyhooed but (to my eyes) rather boring show of Wade Guyton's work at the Whitney several years back. And then I started to notice the various ways Vasari21 artists employ the computer from the simplest manipulations in Photoshop to making three-dimensional forms with state-of-the-art printers. This week, five members write about exploring this still relatively new frontier. Sometimes the outcomes can be downright chilling, as in Holly Grimm’s print below, made using Artificial Intelligence and looking as haunted as van Gogh’s Night Café. Part Two of the report will be posted in a few weeks.
Holly Grimm, La Fonda92 (2018), archival giclee on canvas, 26 by 35 inches
And here’s what other members are up to this week….
Blain/Southern in London is showing recent monumental triptychs and diptychs alongside smaller-scale works by Joan Snyder through May 11. As the gallery’s website notes, Snyder is one of the pre-eminent painters of her generation (b. 1940): she “made her breakthrough in the late 1960s with her ‘stroke’ paintings—a body of abstractions developed from her experiments regarding the anatomy of a painting. She painted paint strokes and other dissected parts—gestures, drips and marks--and laid them over pencilled grids, using the structures as a basis from which to compose narratives.” Snyder herself has remarked: “At the time my idea was to study the anatomy of a stroke, isolating them and using them much like creating a symphony or a piece of music.”
Joan Snyder, Small Rose Altar (2014), oil, acrylic, fabric, paper, rose petals and buds on three wood panels, 9 by 32 inches.
Marilyn Banner has 52 pieces in “Grounding,” an exhibition at Ceres Gallery in New York, NY, up through April 27. “Most of the work references huge boulders at Big Bear Lake near Los Angeles, or buildings and walls in old Barcelona,” she writes. “The rest of the work takes it inspiration from the color of blossoms I see here in Takoma Park, MD (aka “Azalea City”). As I thought about this recent work, I realized that it is really about trying to find, or finding, stability and beauty in a tumultuous and frightening time politically. Something about new birth and opening in the spring, the fragility of the season, and then the solid earth, the resonance and layers of geologic and human history in stone. I’m looking for what has lasted and will last.”
Marilyn Banner, Big Bear 4 (2014), encaustic on wood, 24 by 24 inches
Through April 23, Lisa Breslow is taking part in “A Web of Artists: Friends from Social Networks” at Thomas Deans Fine Art in Atlanta, GA. “Recognizing the importance of social networking in our lives today, we present a ‘social network show,’ says the announcement, which features “works by twenty artists from around the country, including five from Atlanta, brought together for the exhibition primarily through contact on Instagram.” Lisa’s paintings always make me homesick for New York!
Lisa Breslow, Nocturne 2 (2018), oil on canvas, 12 by 12 inches
Donna Ruff is part of overlapping exhibitions in Miami and New York this month. At Rick Wester Fine Art, through May 4, she teams up with two other artists as part of “Other News.” Says the gallery’s website, the “works in varying mediums by three women are inspired by disparate sources but share a common thread in responding to a world of unconfined violence and its human toll. Whether it is the unseen tragedies of international terrorism, a mother’s reaction to seemingly endless and sanctified gun violence or the way displacement and diasporas affect the most innocent populations, these artists share their private concerns and connections in the subject matter directly from personal experience.” Adds Ruff about her show at the Laundromat Art Space in Miami, where she now has a studio: “the work involves text and letterforms, communication and the lack of it and is titled ‘To the Letter.’ The artists are from New York and South Florida. The show will be up from April 9th to April 30th, and we'll have an opening reception on April 13th, when our studios will also be open.”
Donna Ruff, 3.26.17 from the “Migrant” series (2018), hand-cut front pages from, The New York Times, 17 by 14 inches
Leslie Fry has works on paper in two exhibitions this month. She’s part of Paper 2019, curated by an associated curator of prints and drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at Silvermine Arts Center in New Cannan, CT (through May 16), and she’s in “What’s Up, Buttercup?” at the Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ (through May 11). “Leslie Fry’s sculptures and works on paper are inspired by the basic human needs of shelter, food, clothing, and love,” says her newsletter-announcement. “The intersection of the natural world and the human-made world are central in her work. She models, casts, draws, and prints by combining organic materials such as plants, paper, clay, and fabric, with plaster, concrete, metal, and resin.”
Leslie Fry, Panoply (2018), collage on monotype, 40 by 26 inches
Best known for his works in black and white and varying shades of gray, made partly by deft erasure of an abstract image, Mark Sheinkman has been moving into color and is showing recent paintings at Lennon, Weinberg, Inc. in New York (through May 18). After more than 20 years of exploring a limited palette in endless, largely successful permutations, Mark has moved into territory that is clearly nothing short of joyous.
Mark Sheinkman, Hull (2019), oil on linen, 72 by 55 inches
Through May 11, Elisa D’Arrigo’s show of recent ceramics, “In the Moment,” is at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York. “The works begin as variously sized hollow and hand-built cylindrical forms that the artist then manipulates and combines while wet, in a period of intense activity,” says the press release. “The ‘postures’ that result allude to the body in a gestural and even visceral manner. They exude a figural presence, and their hollowness evokes the notion of interiority, and animation from within. The artist has stated that she is compelled by the way we inhabit and imagine our bodies from the inside out, and by the psychological and corporeal aspects of containment.” There will be an artist’s talk with critic and biographer Nancy Princenthal at the gallery on April 13 at 3.30 p.m.
Elisa D’Arrigo, Stancer (2018), glazed ceramic, 7 by 7.5 by 5.5 inches
Etty Yaniv’s installation is part of “Transient Presence” is at the Salena Gallery of Long Island University, Brooklyn, through May 3 (along with works by Agnes Deja). “’On the Horizon’ was created as a sculptural wall relief for the city hall gallery of Las Vegas,” notes the announcement about Yaniv’s installation. “For a year, throughout her daily life in NYC, Yaniv has been re-imagining this hyperbolic mythological city in the desert—a place she had not visited at the time but could still navigate through satellite imagery. Through a process of layering and editing, she coalesces into layered landscapes thousands of repurposed materials from her studio work—fragmented drawings, printout scraps, and discarded objects she has scavenged on her way. These seemingly disjointed pieces are like mosaics or cells which form altogether an open-ended narrative. The artist invites the viewer to join her imaginary journey through time and place, aiming to prompt along the way questions of how we process diurnal time and what does a sense of place mean. It is a journey through the grit and glamor of urban mindscapes with neither a beginning nor an end.” Below is an installation view.
Irene Nelson has a show at Gearbox Gallery in Oakland, CA, through April 20, and sends a paean to the gallery for its support of artist-members. “One of the wonderful perks about being a member of Gearbox is that I have the opportunity to show new work every month and to have a show featuring my work once a year,” she writes. “The timeline keeps me continually engaged in producing new work and in being exposed to lots of art. I love working with others in our tribe of makers to help operate the many facets involved in running a gallery.” About the painting shown here, she says, "I worked over an old panel and was able to riff off of the existing imagery successfully. I maintained a narrow choice of color palette and succumbed to a moment of exhilarating frenzy!"
Irene Nelson, Untitled Red (2019), acrylic and mixed media, 20 by 24 inches
I know I am remiss in posting work by new members, but sometimes by the time I get through writing about shows, finding images, and getting ready to monkey around with Mailchimp, my brain cells are fried. This will happen, but feel free to reach out and give me a friendly poke.
Coming your way soon: a profile of Santa Fe artist Sandra Filipucci; a podcast interview with Alice Robb, author of Why We Dream; lots more drawings; and more about how artists are making cunning use of new technologies. Next week I’ll be taking a couple of days to join one of Paula Roland’s workshops, and I will bring you a full report on that too.
Till later,
P.S. Does anyone know how to get rid of the "[Test]" that appears in the subject line of these mailings?
Top: An installation view of Susan English’s show “Periphery” at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York.
Lisa Breslow, Nocturne 2 (2018), oil on canvas, 12 by 12 inches
