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Just before Sandy landed in New York, two painters, Sangram
Majumdar and Karla Wozniak, organized a weekend group show, "Mark, Wipe,
Scrape, Shape," at Majumdar's studio, temporarily dubbed Spaceshifter.
And, based on what I saw, just in case you weren't sure, I'm here to
tell you that painting is alive and well!
The 11 painters, Michael Berryhill, Gideon Bok, Matt Bollinger,
Katherine Bradford, Tom Burckhardt, Jackie Gendel, Amy Mahnick,
Majumdar, Kyle Staver, Didier Williams and Wozniak, work in a variety of
idioms; perceptual, abstract, poetical, narrative and conceptual. A
great deal of time traveling is going on as each painter mines various
art historical strains in unexpected and fresh ways. While these
paintings could only have been made in our time, the beauty of the
present moment is that artists need not be driven by the machine of
novelty to be deemed worthy. The dominant tone of these artists'
orientation is that of idiosyncratic visionaries, rolling up their
sleeves and forging a personal understanding of what painting can do.
What is demonstrated here is that the newness is in what each artist
brings to the table as each their own brilliant self; original rather
than ideological or radical.
Sangram Majumdar, "In Dreams," oil on linen, 60x72, 2012
Courtesy of Steven Harvey Projects
Majumdar's painting "In Dreams" is shaped with a clarity of forms
offset by a highly ambiguous space. The impact is of a nether world
reminiscent of dreams I've had in which I can't find my way back from
whence I came.
A woman's visage, glowing blue as if lit up on a computer
screen, dominates the upper portion of the canvas, contained within a
redlined square and hovering over a kind of ornamental fruit tree with
luminescent limes floating in the darkness. Two hands, recalling those
of the barmaid from Manet's "Bar at the Folies-Bergère," emerge
inexplicably from behind the red lines. Beyond the imagistic adventure
there is immense visual pleasure to be had in the anything that works
attitude of Sangram's methodology; stenciling, scraping, glazing,
shirtsleeves rolled up painting.
Michael Berryhill, "Blind Faith Forever," oil on linen, 30x24", 2012
Michael Berryhill's "Blind Faith Forever" is like a mash-up of
DeChirico weirdness, Bonnard color, William Blake vision and Archimboldo
Mannerism. Part of Berryhill's talent is his complex riffing and
shifting within a contained form while never going off the rails. The
ostensible subject of this painting, a profile head, could also be
perceived as a rock outcropping or an indeterminate still life. I'm
reminded of a line from a Borges story, "The Circular Ruins," in which
an ancient sculpture is described as being either of a tiger or a horse.
Berryhill's handling of the figure's noodly blue-violet hair
simultaneously suggests yarn, a bird's wing and a wildly braided
military epaulette.
Karla Wozniak, "PilotEastTennessee," oil on panel, 39x46, 2012
Karla Wozniak presents a somewhat conventionally composed landscape,
back-, middle-, foreground; but the illusion is exploded from within by
alternately thin and then very thickly sculpted improvisatory striations
of paint. Discordant and un-naturalistic color is set against grays and
earth tones, further undermining spatial order. The unhinged goings-on
are punctuated by interspersed visual anchors: a high power line tower, a
Pilot gas station sign and an incongruous green star-burst in the
painting's center. Is it the mundane elements invading a hallucinatory
world or vice versa? Either way, the impact is simultaneously fluid and
awkward and provides a thrilling ride.
Kyle Staver, "Prometheus," oil on canvas, 54x64, 2012
From across the room I was riveted by Kyle Staver's "Prometheus." The
piece recalls the painter Paul Georges in its broad handling and the
way Staver breathes life into both anathema mythological subjects and
courageously takes on the Western figurative tradition with humor and
panache. Painted in large sweeping brushstrokes, an enormous eagle
dominates the top of the canvas, swooping down on the exposed torso of
Prometheus, bent back almost yogically across a conical rock, diminutive
genitals vulnerably exposed; the smooth arc of the figure's frontal
body against the sheet of flat Cerulean blue sky only broken by the two
silhouette dots of his nipples. It's quite a feat to illicit both pathos
and a smile with the image of someone about to have their liver ripped
out. Staver's ambition echoes that of Prometheus' stealing fire from the
Gods.
The problem with most of the work in this show is not a problem with
the work at all, but rather with how we value and dialog about art
today. The tendency among these artists is that they resist easy
encapsulation. In an art world that is very often oriented towards easy
talking points, ideological agendas, corporate branding and one-liners
it can be all too easy to pass on slower, complex, ambiguous work that
raises more questions than it answers. My criticism is that these
artists are not more widely recognized. While some are represented,
others are not; yet. The only high-profile critic consistently writing
about these artists and ones like them is John Yau. That
said, the recognition that painters such as Nicole Eisenman, Dana Shutz
and Jennifer Linhares have gotten recently gives me hope the art world
may be ready to engage with what I regard as a new wave of lively and
exciting painters.
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