Sunday, February 11, 2024

Judging ...WHAT THE HECK??!!!


Bradford Purse, Detail, “Pop-Up Balloon Safari at Failing Wildlife Monument”, oil on canvas

Curating a group exhibition is always a challenge. Hours, days—even weeks—are spent viewing, re-viewing, and selecting work that tells an exceptional story with a visual throughline. Having curated more than a hundred exhibitions, I understand the process. Curators, Janice Meister, Claudia Craemer and Debbie Craemer embraced the challenge. Meister selected the wide range of art objects, and the Craemer sisters presented them exquisitely within the Tall Grass Gallery. 

The works in this show surprise, bewilder, and amuse the viewer with strange combinations of reality. I was able to preview the show and honored to select the award-winning work. The judging process is always completely subjective based on the judge’s life experience, knowledge, and personal bias. That said, here are my award selections. 

Award of Excellence
Bradford Purse, “Pop-Up Balloon Safari at Failing Wildlife Monument” oil on canvas.

Timely and beautifully painted, Purse takes an opportunity to make a powerful statement about the state of the world today. With a bit of dark humor and skillful brush, I found myself lost in the beautiful details of the composition. 

Award of Excellence
Jeanne Garrett, “Gold among the Ashes” archival pigment print on rice paper with gold leaking. 

Loosely reminiscent of the work of Jane Fulton Alt who photographed controlled prairie burns in the early 2000s, this intimate piece presents the silent elegance of the destruction and rebirth of the forest floor. Garrett explores various levels of depth within an abstract landscape. Perhaps a comment of the current climate crisis, the image offers many conceptual interpretations. 

Award of Excellence
Patricia Stewart, “Wear Pills Meet Fashion” mixed media assemblage: medicine bottles, wood hanger, IV hanger. 

Stewart’s “Wear Pills Meet Fashion” is a statement that highlights the need for some to medicate as a daily ritual—like getting dressed. But the piece also—perhaps unintentionally—comments on the marketing campaigns produced by the pharmaceutical industry, that encourage the masses to accessorize with pills. The number of empty prescription bottles seems to underscore the issue. This unique assemblage is a conceptual version of Munch’s “The Scream.”

Third Place:
Richard Burd, “Elgin Joliet and Eastern Railroad, Park Forest” black and white digital print.

Beautifully composed, this photograph offers a nostalgic moment with a twist of humor. The lavish abundance of textures found throughout the image offer a range of tactile secondary focal points to explore.
 
Second Place:
Randy Buvala, Detail, “Staying Home to Watch the Rain” charcoal on paper with found objects.

Drawn to the honesty of the materials, this culmination of elements results in a fascinating encounter. The rich application of charcoal creates a soft and enchanting experience, like that of a childhood fable.

First Place:
Bradford Purse, “Ebbing Tides of the Heart” oil on canvas.

Beginning a unique visual conversation dealing with universal subjects, Purse presents luxurious imagery to challenge the audience into considering the world in which we live. He dares the viewer to spend time within his compositions, offering up expertly executed details that invigorate the canvas and entice the viewer. I found it difficult to walk away, and when I did, I found myself being pulled back to explore further. Brad Purse is truly a master of both concept and technique. 

The artists included in the WHAT THE HECK??!!! exhibition are, Jay Anderson, Marcia Babler, Judi Boehner, Richard Burd, Randy Buvala, Rita Dianni-Kaleel, Carol Estes, Mary Flynn, Jeanne Garrett, Janet Glazar, Nickie Gunning, Luis Gutierrez, Judith Hanacek, David Jagodzinski, Marie Karambis, Amanda Lorance, Lucy Mueller, Bob Nardi, Diane O’Connor, Bradford Purse, Tali Rachelle, Mary Schiller, Doug Stein, Patricia Stewart, Tanya Wingo-Brown, and Kelly Witte.

WHAT THE HECK??!!! will continue through March 16, 2024, at the Tall Grass Art Gallery located at 367 Artists Walk in Park Forest, Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am - 4pm. Learn more at www.tallgrassarts.org


Friday, January 5, 2024

MEMORY - Christopher Art Gallery of Prairie State College

Frances Cox, Memory of Watching Plants, 32x32 in, oil on canvas

A juried exhibition titled Memory, opened this week at the Christopher Art Gallery of Prairie State College. The exhibition, curated by Gallery Director Beth Shadur, includes a variety of work addressing the ideas of past experience and nostalgia. 

The school’s gallery guide points out, “Our ability as humans to make and remember memories is what makes experiences rich and defining in our lives. Actually, all living beings have memory, and this is evident by the mysterious ways in which birds migrate successfully, our pets learn our requests for obedience, and how activities for living beings become habitual. But for artists, the ability to process and then elicit memory is particularly profound.”

Frances Cox was raised in a Chicago neighborhood where her parents owned the local bakery. Some of her earliest memories were of drawings produced on an unlimited supply of brown wrapping paper acquired from the family business. She remembers family drives from the city, exploring the countryside and nature. As her work as an artist evolved, Cox redefined landscapes and nature-inspired still-lives.

The work of Frances Cox defines beautiful abundance. Cox orchestrates the repetition of form, pattern, and texture creating lavish compositions with her unique visual vocabulary and a seductive use of jeweled color tones. Each canvas persuades the viewer to renounce reality and immerse themselves into a new organic world. The distinctive contrasting color patterns create a lavishly orchestrated composition suggestive of an abstract cornucopia. 

Other artist included in the exhibition include Joan Ackerman-Zimny, Marcia Babler, Wayne Bertola, Pate Conaway, Helen Dannelly, Jeanne Garrett, Leslie Hirshfield, Pauline Kochanski, Alejandro Lugo, Mary Lynn Maloney, Janice Meister, Betty Ann Mocek, Karen Musgrave, Carol Neiger, Julie Rivera, Jihye Shin, Aaron Sims, and Colette Wright Adams.

The Memory exhibition continues through January 25 at the Christopher Art Gallery. A reception for the artists is scheduled for Wednesday, January 17, 11 am- 1:30 pm. The gallery is found on the main campus of Prairie State College, located at 202 South Halsted Street, Chicago Heights, Illinois 60411. Learn more at https://prairiestate.edu/christopher-art-gallery/







Saturday, December 23, 2023

50 Paintings — Milwaukee Art Museum


Eddie Martinez, Untitled 2020 Detail, acrylic and oil on panel

Last month, an exhibition titled 50 Paintings opened at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Co-curators Margaret Andera and Michelle Grabner selected 50 paintings—each produced by one of 50 different international artists over the past five years. The objective was to compile a collection of work that would represent current trends in painting today.

As I explored the exhibition, I found myself searching for a common idea—a visual or conceptual throughline that defined this specific snapshot-in-time. With the understanding that no idea is entirely unique, I thought about the global collective conscious. I scanned the gallery walls knowing that the creation of fine art is typically the artist’s reaction to the world and world events. Although the exhibition contained a variety of captivating and approachable imagery, it seemed obvious to consider the global events of our recent past.

So, five years, 2018 to 2023... Humanitarian crises throughout the world, a global pandemic, an increase of authoritarian dictatorships, the Central American Migrant exodus, journalists silenced and murdered, climate science ignored, the murder of George Floyd, the rise of the MeToo Movement, Russa’s aggression toward Ukraine... Each of these events revealed an attempt to dominate, manipulate and control. The symbolism within this collection of paintings became more apparent—board games, and all things associated—strategy, determination, manipulation, and conquest at any cost.

Eddie Martinez, Untitled 2020, 30 x 40in., acrylic and oil on panel

The untitled piece by Eddie Martinez began to unravel some of the mystery within the exhibition’s content. Martinez is recognized for creating mixed media imagery that utilizes abstract figurative elements created with gesturally drawn strokes of translucent pigment. The untitled canvas, included in the exhibition, presents a quickly drawn face painted on a nebulous shape with an underlying checkerboard pattern. It suggests the imprint created by daily media games—perhaps implying the long-lasting psychological effects of the 24/7 news cycle. 

Rebecca Morris, Untitled (#04-22), 2022, 66 x 67in., oil and spray paint on canvas

The checkerboard is referenced again in Untitled (#04-22), a substantial canvas by Rebecca Morris. This image is an exaggerated segment of the standard checkerboard produced with cloud-like washes of oil pigment and enhanced with spray paint. The canvas is edged with a bold metallic border—curtailing the expected geometric 64 square format. The image seems to imply hope or perhaps suggesting that the viewer attempt to focus on the more encouraging segments of the game.

Pat Steir, Untitled XXII, 2019, 36 x 36in., oil on canvas

An abstract work by Pat Steir is another notably thought-provoking image included in 50 Paintings. Known for her Waterfall series of dripping pigment on canvas, Steir’s Untitled XXII of 2019, captivats the viewer to examine the details of gently trickling pigment frozen in time. The imagery invites the spectator to focus on a specific moment in time, perhaps referencing the intervals of the transition within society as a whole. 

Well worth exploring, the 50 Paintings exhibition continues at the Milwaukee Art Museum through June 23, 2024. The museum is located at 700 N. Art Museum Drive, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53202. Learn more at: https://mam.org/exhibitions/50-paintings/

Pat Steir, Untitled XXII Detail, 2019, 36 x 36in., oil on canvas


---
ABOUT:

EDDIE MARTINEZ was born in 1977 in Groton Naval Base, Groton, Connecticut and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Recent solo museum exhibitions include the Yuz Museum, Shanghai, (2019-2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan (2019); The Bronx Museum, New York (2018); The Drawing Center, New York (2017) and The Davis Museum at Wellesley College, MA (2017). He has also had solo exhibitions at Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2023); Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (2022); Loyal Gallery, Stockholm (2021); Perrotin, Hong Kong (2019); Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels (2016); Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2014); Galerie Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen (2009); Galeria Commercial, San Juan (2007) and Bucket Rider, Chicago (2005). Additionally, Martinez’s work has been featured in Modern Painters, ARTINFO, The New York Times, ArtReview, The Brooklyn Rail, and Art in America.

REBECCA MORRIS (b.1969, Honolulu, HI) lives and works in Los Angeles. Her recent survey exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA) will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in September 2023. Other significant solo exhibitions have been held at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2019) and Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Holland (2014) as well as presentations at Made in L.A., Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016), the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014), The Wexner Center for the Arts (2018), and The Renaissance Society (2005). Other solo shows include those at 356 Mission Rd., Los Angeles, and LAXART, Los Angeles.

PAT STEIR Born in Newark, NJ, Steir went on to study at the Pratt Institute and the Boston University Colle of Fine Arts, graduating with her BFA from Pratt in 1962. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions in many prestigious museums and galleries, from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Tate Gallery in London, to Cheim & Read in New York, among many others. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, such as the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983, National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1973 and 1976, and the Alumni Acheivement Award from the Pratt Institute in 2008. Steir’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC, the Metropolitain Museum of Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and many other institutions. She lives and works in New York.

MARGARET ANDERA, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art
Margaret Andera has a history of over twenty years with the Milwaukee Art Museum. She began her tenure in 1989 as a curatorial intern, assigned to work on the newly acquired Michael and Julie Hall Collection of American Folk Art. She joined the staff full-time in 1993 as a curatorial assistant and advanced her expertise in contemporary art and the art of untrained artists. • Andera since has facilitated several important acquisitions of contemporary and self-taught work for the Collection and has been instrumental in establishing the Milwaukee Art Museum as a leading American institution for modern self-taught material. • Among the exhibitions she has curated are On Site: Andrea Zittel and Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Art, as well as Vito Acconci: Acts of Architecture, Magnetic North: The Landscapes of Tom Uttech, Accidental Genius: Art from the Anthony Petullo Collection, and Currents 36: Dirk Skreber, whose accompanying catalogues are but a few of Andera’s several publications.

MICHELLE GRABNER, Co-Curator
Michelle Grabner is known for her broad perspective developed as teacher, writer and critic over the past 30 years. The site where it all comes together is the studio. Her artmaking is driven by a distinctive value in the productivity of work and takes place outside of dominant systems. • Central to the work is process. Grabner references Penelope’s clever ploy of weaving by day and unweaving at night, which kept the suitors at bay in Homer’s Ithaca. Like Penelope, Grabner finds a generative space for mending, healing, and woolgathering within her unique system of de-weaving and filling in. Like Penelope, who used the coded language of shroud-making to bring about change, Grabner uncovers new dynamic relationships through her visionary practice of repetition. With a deep attention to abstract patterns and all the metaphors they conjure, Grabner pushes the limits of compositional structures to discover the tipping point between stability and precariousness, between continuance and wondrous difference.

Sunday, October 1, 2023

“The Journey is what makes it truly exciting” BRUNO SURDO

Bruno Surdo, "A Selfie, A Pink Unicorn, Paparazzi! What does it take to get noticed?" oil on canvas, detail

When I first met Bruno Surdo, he was a professor of illustration and animation at The Illinois Institute of Art-Chicago. Back then, his reputation for flawlessly rendering the human form was common knowledge. Not until roughly 2014 did I have an opportunity to experience his massively complex figurative canvases which referenced his personal impressions of contemporary society. That exhibition was presented at the Ann Nathan gallery in Chicago. Since the closing of the iconic Ann Nathan Gallery in 2016, Bruno Surdo has been represented by Nathan’s colleague Victor Armendariz, owner of Gallery VICTOR.

Bruno Surdo, "A Selfie, A Pink Unicorn, Paparazzi! What does it take to get noticed?" oil on canvas 79 x 108"

This past Saturday afternoon, as part of the Chicago Exhibition Weekend 2023, Gallery VICTOR presented an artist talk with Bruno Surdo—highlighting the artist, his process, and marking the conclusion of Surdo’s current exhibition. The exhibition offered both the massive compositions of interacting figures—imagery that Surdo has become known for—as well as a few amazingly intimate portraits, seemingly sketches for inclusion into larger canvases. It’s these brilliant studies that I gravitate toward. 

Bruno Surdo, "Reflection" oil on canvas 30 x 24"

“Reflection” offers the viewer a quiet moment to get lost in beautifully painted patterns of texture and surface. This single-figured portrait captures the interest of the observer by repeatedly offering new and exciting details to explore. With the subtle highlights falling upon the subject’s sensual lips and eyelashes, to the detailed complexity of her hair, “Reflection” ensnares the viewer into a corner of the mind where time becomes irrelevant. Even the background creates brilliant secondary interest with a uniquely random pattern, which Surdo explained, was inspired by the observation of aluminum foil.

As Surdo discussed his inspirations and process, he shared that the preliminary drawings for each painting are key to the final work. He defined stacks of renderings for a single canvas—and that the drawings are resolved on the canvas before beginning to paint. He also pointed out that, if an area of a painting wasn’t working, he had no problem wiping it away and beginning again. As he put it... “The Journey is what makes it truly exciting.”

Although the exhibition has concluded, works by Bruno Surdo are still available through Gallery VICTOR located at 300 West Superior Street, Chicago IL 60654. Gallery VICTOR is open Tuesday through Saturday 11am to 5pm. Learn more at www.galleryvictor.com


BRUNO SURDO (b. 1963, Chicago)
Bruno A. Surdo is a true native of Chicago. He studied drawing and art history and pursues the mastery of the human form with inspiration from the Renaissance masters. His provocative works center around the human condition and are known for their allegorical imagery. Bruno has had numerous shows and commissions, and his work is held in many prestigious art collections around the world. He lectures often and is a teacher who believes in nurturing others. The artistic forms he has created are images that communicate a personal commentary on the issue or question in mind. These shapes are then arranged in a pictorial space using the human form. Surdo strives to communicate a message to the viewer - to engage the person in a conversation between what he puts forth and what he or she can then interpret. The interchange of response and curiosity are goals the artist set when composing his ideas. Surdo believes art is a continual form of expression and he feels committed to search for a language that brings his thoughts and feelings to the surface.



Sunday, April 16, 2023

EXPO CHICAGO 2023 - Humanity


Holly Wilson, Paper Wings: Fearless (detail), cast bronze with patina, 21 x 23 x 13” 

EXPO CHICAGO 2023—The tenth anniversary edition of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Art—opened this weekend at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. The event includes artwork from more than 170 of the most prominent international galleries—featuring work produced by thousands of fine artists currently working throughout the world. Countries represented at the 2023 exposition include: Argentina, Bahamas, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, and Zimbabwe.

As I began to explore the exhibition, I found myself looking for common themes. Conceptual content was varied but the predominant subject was the human form. It seemed as though artists were tapping into our societal need to hold tightly to humanity. 

Holly Wilson, Paper Wings: Fearless, cast bronze with patina, 21 x 23 x 13” 

Holly Wilson’s Paper Wings: Fearless, seemed to set the tone for the work I was about to experience. The cast bronze sculpture presents a masked figure with wings as arms. Massive feet stabilize the form as it steps onto a beam which protrudes out into the world. But Wilson’s intention is much more significant than the beauty of the detailed surface textures. She points out our collective fear... The fear of the unknown—both that of the outside world and the inner mind. The mask hides our identity, for we lack the courage to take a leap of faith. Wilson points out that... “In that moment, we must be fearless to take the leap.” 

Timothy Cummings, Night Spirit of the Adriatic Sea, 2022, acrylic on panel, 24 x 18" 

As I continued through the show, I came across the work of Timothy Cummings, a self-taught artist represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery (New York). Cummings creates haunting surrealistic impressions that typically reference religious iconography, death, or martyrdom. The intimate and obsessively detailed images transport the viewer into a world where anything is possible. 

Cummings’ Night Spirit of the Adriatic Sea offers a single centralized figure bound in a foliage sarcophagus. An orb of warm light levitates above cupped hands and hovers in front of the heart. The figure is found at the waters edge as the sun is trapped behind repressive clouds directly overhead.

Alyssa Monks, Between Here and There, 2022, oil on linen, 43 x 63"

Finally, I found myself mesmerized by the classic work of Alyssa Monks and the other exhibiting artist of Forum Gallery. Monks’ painting, Between Here and There, presents the image of a woman in the protective posture of the fetal position. With her face expressing pure exhaustion and her body marred with plant life, she is presented as a manipulated object amongst a sterile background. Monks creates vulnerable intimacy through the powerful composition and classic rendering of the figurative form.

EXPO CHICAGO has much to experience. The exhibition continues through Sunday April 16 at 6pm. Tickets are $35 [$50 with tour]. Parking is available on site. For additional information visit: expochicago.com


HOLLY WILSON of the Delaware Nation, Lenape and Cherokee Nation is now based in Mustang, Oklahoma. In 2001, she graduated with an MFA in sculpture; in 1994, she earned an MA in ceramics from Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas; she received a BFA in ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1992. Holly Wilson is exhibited with the Center for Native Futures, a non-profit Native and Indigenous gallery space in the city of Zhegagoynak (Chicago)

TIMOTHY CUMMINGS was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1968 where he grew up in the midst of Spanish Catholic and Native American culture, fertile with religious imagery and iconography in the churches. Murals and retablos he saw depicting death, martyrdom, and Day of the Dead imagery influenced him. Cummings is completely self-taught. Timothy Cummings is represented by the Nancy Hoffman Gallery in New York.

ALYSSA MONKS was Born 1977 in New Jersey. Monks studied at The New School in New York and earned her B.A. from Boston College in 1999. During this time she studied painting at Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence. She went on to earn her M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art in 2001. Monks completed an artist in residency at Fullerton College in 2006 and has lectured and taught at universities and institutions worldwide. She continues to offer workshops and mentorships and lectures regularly. Alyssa Monks is represented by Forum Gallery, New York.
---

Sunday, April 10, 2022

EXPO CHICAGO 2022 - Meditative Obsession


EXPO CHICAGO—The International Exhibition of Contemporary Art—opened this weekend at Navy Pier’s Festival Hall. The show presents artwork from more than 140 of the most prominent international galleries—highlighting an array of fine art created by some three thousand artists. The event offers the opportunity to experience the fine art currently being produced around the globe, while revisiting some of the iconic artists from the past.  

EXPO is substantial—seeming to fill every square foot of Festival Hall. I approached the exhibition in the same way I approach the first visit to a new art museum… Walk until something stops you. This has always been a successful technique when approaching an overwhelming quantity of work. As I wandered the corridors at a slow and scrutinizing pace, I found myself repeatedly standing in front of meditative works—fixed on the result of obsessive technique. 

 


New to me, was the work of Anne Lindberg, represented by Carrie Secrist Gallery in Chicago. Lindberg’s visually meditative work is composed of thousands of individually placed graphite and colored pencil lines. Beautiful from a distance and uniquely engaging when approached—Lindberg’s complex imagery, pulls the viewer into a seemingly fragile illusionary environment intended to reflect the human condition, yet Lindberg’s world is emotionally powerful. 



 



As I continued through the show, I came across the Aboriginal paintings of Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, represented by the Smith Davidson Gallery in Miami and Amsterdam. The paintings are stunning. The scale forces engagement. The imagery submerges the viewer into a field of dotted line that occasionally shifts to generate unexpected—but comfortable—transitions. Each segment of the canvas is a meditative moment, but in its entirety, a reminder of the sacredness of nature and our world. 



 


Finally, I found myself enthralled with the paintings of Ashanté Kindle, represented by the Latchkey Gallery in New York. Kindle achieves sophisticated beauty through an intricate and thickly laid, fluid impasto. Her elaborate abstract color fields generate a level of meditative introspection—offering the opportunity to get lost in glistening movement. For Kindle, these paintings are personal. The created wavelike forms define the natural textures that occur in Black hair. Kindle’s Artist Statement defines the work as “…a form of personal healing… and the desire to celebrate the history and beauty of Blackness.” 

 


EXPO CHICAGO has much to experience. The exhibition continues through Sunday at 6pm. Tickets are $30 [$50 with tour]. Parking is available on site. For additional information visit: expochicago.com

 

 



ANNE LINDBERG’s work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Venues include:  The Drawing Center (NYC), Tegnerforbundet (Norway), SESC Bom Retiro (Sao Paulo), The Mattress Factory, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Museum of Arts and Design NYC, Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh, US Embassy in Rangoon Burma, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Akron Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati, and the Omi International Art Center, among others. My work is in collections of the Nevada Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Howard and Cindy Rachofsky Collection, Collection of Kristy and Bill Gautreaux, Federal Reserve Bank Kansas City, Niwako Kimono Company, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics among many others. Lindberg is the recipient of the 2011 Painters & Sculptors Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a Charlotte Street Foundation Fellowship, two ArtsKC Fund Inspiration Grants, a Lighton International Artists Exchange grant, the Art Omi International Artists Residency, an American Institute of Architects Allied Arts and Crafts award, and a Mid-America National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. I hold a BFA from Miami University (1985), and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1988). Lindberg works out of her studio in Ancramdale, New York.

 

 

ASHANTÉ KINDLE characterizes her practice as a form of personal healing: creation driven by a desire to celebrate the history and beauty of Blackness. As a multi-disciplinary artist working in abstraction, she creates abstracted wave forms that resemble the natural textures that occur in Black hair through a range of styling techniques. Kindle currently resides in Mansfield, CT as an MFA candidate at The University of Connecticut. She received her BFA from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. She has exhibited at FALSE FLAG (New York), Red Arrow Gallery (Tennessee), and Center on Contemporary Art (Washington) among others. 

 

 

WARLIMPIRRNGA TJAPALTJARRI was born around 1958 east of Kiwirkurra in Western Australia. In 1984 the international headlines were filled with the ’discovery’ of the last group of Australian Aborigines who until the late 20th century had managed to retain their traditional lifestyle in complete isolation. These so-called ’last of the nomads’ or ‘lost tribe’ of nine Pintupi walked in from the bush west of Lake Owen that year and for the first time came into contact with western civilization. Six of these nine Aborigines became artists. From these six, Warlimpirrnga was the first who started painting after carefully observing other artists from the community at Kiwirkurra. Within three years, Warlimpirrnga transformed from a nomad with a traditional lifestyle into one of the leading artists from the Papunya Tula Artists corporation. In 1988, he held his first exhibition in Melbourne. Warlimpirrnga paints primarily in two styles, he makes extensive use of geometric shapes to depict the stories of the Tingari (ancestors), or he uses lines made up of carefully placed dots in his dreamings that depict holy Lake Mackay, a site of which he is one of the custodians. Warlimpirrnga uses the same dot technique as other Pintupi artists like his brothers, Walala and Thomas, but also George Tjungurrayi.

 

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Joyce Polance - Landscapes

Joyce Polance, Uprising, 2021, 30x36"

I’ve been curating fine art exhibitions for roughly twenty-five years. During that period, I’ve worked with literally hundreds of artists. One of the most prolific and inspiring has been painter, Joyce Polance. I was thrilled to see that Polance's work was selected for exhibition by curator, Suzanne Gorgas of the Laura A. Sprague Art Gallery.

Currently on (virtual) exhibition at the Laura A. Sprague Art Gallery of Joliet Junior College, is "Landscapes," a vehemently powerful exhibition of paintings by fine artist, Joyce Polance. The exhibition features twenty-one bending, twisting, and flowing compositions that blur the definition of landscape. Each canvas forces the viewer into a chaotic yet texturally-beautiful reality, weaving a visual story of emotional turbulence.

Joyce Polance, Tumbles, 2020, 36x36"

Polance’s abstractions begin with a specific reference. She explains, “once the image is initially laid in, I cease looking at it. Instead, I engage in dialogue with the painting, letting it lead me to unknown places. Objects begin to change shape; planes become distorted, crashing into one another, melting. I often paint upside down in order to view the subject as an abstract composition, enabling me to focus on color and movement rather than on representation."

And Polance isn’t afraid to destroy imagery that she has created. She explains, “In becoming willing to destroy my work, I allow for something entirely new to emerge. These processes occur multiple times during the creation of a piece, removing the image even further from reality.”

Joyce Polance “Landscapes” continues through February 25—with a virtual artist talk scheduled for Wednesday, February 16th at 1pm via Zoom Media. Additional information may be found on the home page of the Joliet Junior College Laura A. Sprague Art Gallery

Joyce Polance, Ticket, 2019, 20x28"


About Joyce Polance: 
Joyce Polance is a New York-based painter working in oils. Her work consists of expressionist portraits and landscapes which explore the chaotic inner worlds of their subjects—both as depiction of the subjects' own vulnerabilities and of their connections to the tumultuous political atmosphere we are currently living in.

Polance has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of multiple grants and awards including six Chicago CAAP grants, a George Sugarman Foundation grant, two Judith Dawn Memorial grants, and a fellowship at Spertus Institute in Chicago. Her paintings are held internationally in private and corporate collections.

Polance was born in New York City in 1965. She attended Wesleyan University and received a BFA from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is represented by Judy Ferrara Gallery in Three Oaks, MI, Elephant Room in Chicago, IL, Gallery 13 in Minneapolis, MN, and Hemley Gallery online. Her paintings may be viewed on her website, www.joycepolance.com. Follow her on Instagram: @JoycePolance.