Tag: abstract painting

Cecily Brown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cecily Brown’s energetic brushwork comes to a boil at the center of her 2006-08 painting, Memento Mori I, a highlight of her current retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.   The museum identifies the roiling mass of white, blue and pinkish tones in the foreground as a tablecloth and place settings being yanked from the table, a reference to an English poem meant to instruct young people not to tip their chairs back.  Elsewhere, a female nude dances with death (inspired by an Edvard Munch print), a tabletop still life proffers an enormous, blood red lobster claw and the heads of two children are positioned to form a skull.  Such reminders of mortality and offers of moral instruction recall highlights from the Met’s historic European painting collections, suggesting the themes’ the continued resonance.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Dec 3rd).

Cecily Brown, Memento Mori I, oil on linen, 2006-08.

Helen Frankenthaler at Gagosian Gallery

Helen Frankenthaler’s abstract paintings allude to landscapes and moods; a showcase of the artist’s work from the ‘90s at Gagosian Gallery conveys the pleasures of colors and feelings observed in nature.  Pioneer of an influential staining technique in mid-century American abstraction, Frankenthaler here adds an overt, textured brushstroke that emphasizes the surface of the canvas.  Appearing to hover over aqua-toned pools of color and an underlying dark depth, the long orange mark sets in play a complicated and shifting illusion of depth. (On view through April 15th on 24th Street in Chelsea).

Helen Frankenthaler, Poseidon, acrylic on canvas, 70 ¾ x 100 inches, 1990.

Gerhard Richter at David Zwirner Gallery

Though they were finished over five years ago, 91 year old German artist Gerhard Richter’s ‘final paintings’ from 2016-17 at David Zwirner Gallery feel current; together with smaller-scale work on paper, the paintings have been a ‘must-see’ since opening in mid-March.  Richter’s muscular painting process involved scraping layers of paint from the surface of his paintings with a large self-designed squeegee.  Never sure of what his technique would yield, Richter surrendered at least part of a painting’s outcome to chance; the resulting images embody movement, resisting the static quality of a finished piece. (On view in Chelsea through April 29th).

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), oil on canvas, 78 ¾ x 98 3/8 inches, 2016.

Ryan Sullivan at 125 Newbury

Ryan Sullivan’s abstractions invite viewers on a process of discovery in new work at 125 Newbury; what appear to be relatively straightforward non-representational paintings are in fact complicated images created by both chance and forethought.  Sullivan’s working technique is key.  Using pigment suspended in industrial grade resin, the artist makes the paintings ‘backward,’ by laying down the marks that will be seen on the surface, then continuing to add on the background layers, eventually moving the piece from its frame once set.  As much sculpture as painting, the untitled pieces foreground our own exploration of how to interpret what we’re encountering in each dynamic and complex composition.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 28th).

Ryan Sullivan, Untitled, cast urethane resin, fiberglass, epoxy, 88 ¾ x 79 ¾ inches, 2022.

Rico Gatson at Miles McEnery Gallery

Like two huge eyes or dual portals into the unknown, Rico Gatson’s ‘Untitled (Double Consciousness)’ is dominated by two intersecting sets of concentric circles, a repeated motif in his current show of painting titled ‘Spectral Visions’ at Miles McEnery Gallery.  The work’s title suggests a simultaneous looking outward and inward; its vibrant color indicating a state of heightened awareness.  Inspired by mathematician Ron Eglash’s study of fractal forms found in African patterns and spiritual expressions in the work of artists like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, Gatson harnesses geometry to express kinds of order that exist beyond the conscious realm. (On view through Jan 28th).

Rico Gatson, Untitled (Double Consciousness), acrylic paint and glitter on wood, 36 x 48 inches, 2022.