Friday, February 26th, 2010
Justine Reyes
On a recent visit to The Center for Photography in Woodstock, New York I had the pleasure of viewing the works of Justine Reyes. A series entitled Vanitas included photographs reflecting old Dutch still lifes in a similar vain but with a most sharp and contemporary air that was both refreshing and humorous.
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Josh Dorman
Whisper (all images via Mary Ryan Gallery)
Josh Dorman paints on old topographical survey maps, tinted with age and layered with meticulously arranged shapes and images, colors flowing within and outside of existing contours, combining histories and facets of the past to embrace a dream that is reflective and inquisitive of the real world. His current show at Mary Ryan gallery was a refreshing reminder of my great enthusiasm for all things collage, especially if it invokes looking at and thinking about the world with fantasy inducing stories while incorporating an undercurrent of criticism, passive yet incisive questioning, and a loss of order or norm.
Monday, November 30th, 2009
Dasha Shishkin
Afraid of certainty, 2009, acrylic, ink and graphite on canvas, 58.25 x 71.25in, image via feuer site
A couple months back Zach Feuer Gallery hosted an exhibition by artist Dasha Shishkin and it blew me away. There’s a variety of elements in this show that combined together made it so convincingly complete and mesmerizing. Upon entering the gallery you’re greeted by a cascade of paintings that are assertive, bold, and large. Starring into each one I was moved by the riveting flow of shape and colors, the figures and non-figures flowing, floating, mending and blending into and atop each other. There is a golden hue behind each painting, creating a glow and brightness that accentuates without being loud or attention-bearing. The patterns found in the background, whether floor, or wall or objects are intermingled and webbed together with the patterns of clothing worn by figures outlined in blue, black, green and red. It’s a collage of disturbed action, with no clear narrative or motivation, all suggesting some odd surrealistic dream that is subtly sexy and violent, elusive and suggestive, simultaneously jarring and soothing.
Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Asuka Ohsawa
images via horton & co
Asuka Ohsawa masterfully uses gouache on paper to create a world rife with dichotomous flair. Long Japanese scroll paintings depict cute anthropomorphic animals frolicking the town in seeming innocence and naivete but upon closer inspection there is a child ready to detonate a bomb and a crowd ready to capture and devour. There is underlying tension in all her works, reflecting on ideals and grievences of family and home, social and cultural norms, sexual moires, and moral righteousness. Each character and its surrounding environment is tightly rendered and outlined in sharp and precise lines, executed in flattened perspectives and limited color palates.
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Dan Sabau
I recently ran into Dan Sabau’s haunting and ethereal abstract-figurative watercolors at YES Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I was immediately drawn to the dashing bright colors and the flow of lines that maintained a definitive form despite allusive strokes of paint. Faces and figures are distraught and aloof, some hidden and others morphed into voluptuous loops. There’s a confounding element of ghastly transparency and confrontational forwardness that makes them disturbing and addictive.
Friday, July 24th, 2009
Tadashi Moriyama
I found Tadashi Moriyama’s work during Bushwick Open Studios this past June and fell in love with the intricacy and obsessive mark making process that is evident in each ink and gouache work. Each painting is rife with apocalyptic imagery rendered in countless repetitions of a few motifs including waffle-like gridded squares forming architectural structures and tubular wobbly connectors slithering in and out of buildings and bodily orifices.
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
Chris Soria
This past Saturday was the opening of the India Street Mural Project in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I helped organize the project taking on duties such as running the blog, printing business cards, and flipping burgers. Best part of the gig was getting to witness six artists progress from painting a blank white wall into massive and beautifully crafted murals. Artist Chris Soria’s contribution to the project is titled Antiquated Giant, which overlaps images of a local burned down building and the skeleton of an ancient sea turtle. The resulting image is surreal, its layered illusions rife with both jagged and organic movements.
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