Filed under: DC, Q&A | Tags: Contemporary Wing, Lauren Gentile, Matthew Smith, Next Generation
A few months prior to opening her new storefront gallery, Lauren Gentile organized the group show Next Generation in a raw warehouse space in downtown D.C. It was timed to coincide with the Rubell Family Collection’s 30 Americans at the Corcoran last winter, and it tapped a few art stars from the Rubell show to select a batch of up-and-comers they viewed as the next generation of great artists. It was a novel conceit for an exciting show, as well as a clever pooling of disparate resources that included direct mayoral intervention.
As of earlier this month Gentile’s putting that resourcefulness to work in Contemporary Wing, her new exhibition space on 14th Street. It’s a coming home of sorts — Gentile was the longtime gallery director at Irvine Contemporary, which occupied the same address until it shuttered last summer. And she’s inaugurating the new digs with an aptly titled solo show, I’m Coming Home, by Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi (NAP #87 and #100), a recent MFA graduate from American University. I recently caught up with Lauren to chat about her new gallery and inaugural show, as well as the Next Generation exhibition. Our conversation after the jump. –Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi | Detail view of “Knok Knok, Who’s There?”, 2012. Acrylic, gouache, imitation gold leaf and handpainted collage on Mylar. 40 x 30 inches
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Filed under: Q&A | Tags: Cooper Cole Gallery, Ellen C. Caldwell, Marissa Textor
Marissa Textor’s graphite drawings are hyperrealistic and vivid. With her pencil, Textor bends and molds shades of grey and white seamlessly, creating images so true to life that they appear to be photographic.
Her subjects vary, but she often creates images of pre- and post-destruction, conjuring an extreme sense of foreboding or impending devastation. Somehow this momentum she captures lingers with you as a viewer. After seeing “Alone out Here” in NAP 97, I am still somewhat-subconsciously haunted and chilled by the quiet and predatory sharks she depicts. - Ellen C. Caldwell, LA Contributor
Marissa Textor | Alone Out Here, graphite on paper, 28.5″ x 43″
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Filed under: Los Angeles, Q&A | Tags: 97, Ellen C. Caldwell, Foreclosure Map Quilts, Kathryn Clark, NAP, NAP #97
Kathryn Clark’s (NAP#97) sewn pieces draw on an established quilting aesthetic and tradition. Visually, they evoke memories of my grandma’s quilts, patch working, and hand-sewn labors of love. Thematically, they record and capture a history.
Kathryn Clark | Modesto Foreclosure Quilt, 2011. 16″ x 42″ Tea stained voile, linen, cotton and embroidery thread.
Clark builds upon and tweaks this quilting tradition though. Quilts have always captured a history, personal narrative, or story in more ways than one, whether memorializing a person with scraps of clothing, or depicting monumental events in one’s life, or by capturing a family’s history in cloth. Clark’s cloths tell a similar story, but they do so by freezing a moment forever in time. Mapping foreclosed neighborhoods and cities, Clark’s “Foreclosure Map Quilts” quite literally preserve a changing landscape and document the current economy using remnants, found cloth, and fibers as the conservatorial glue. Her quilts are rich, contextually, historically, and visually. - Ellen C. Caldwell, LA Contributor
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Filed under: Q&A | Tags: 96, Ellen C. Caldwell, Ellen Caldwell, NAP, NAP 96, Nox Contemporary, Thomas Aaron
Thomas Aaron’s (NAP #96) birds-eye visions of natural landscapes shift the viewer’s perspective instantly. His paintings offer us satellite-like images of the earth, highlighting both nature and man’s imposition upon it.
Thomas Aaron | UT T12N R11W, Mixed media, 2011, 78″ x 78″
His work reflects something of a combination of photographic realism and fantasy, as Aaron’s forced positioning of structured order, gridlines, and commoditization of the earth is projected in subtle earth-tones and paintings that somehow evoke peacefulness and calm rather than violence and degradation. - Elen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor
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Filed under: Noteworthy, Q&A | Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, Bill Arning, Ellen C. Caldwell, Ellen Caldwell, James Rondeau, Matthew Smith, Miami Art Museum, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, William Betts
This year’s New American Paintings Annual Prize has been awarded to William Betts. If you’re a longtime subscriber to New American Paintings you’re probably familiar with the work of the Houston-based artist. Betts has appeared in editions #60, #72, #84 and most recently as an Editor’s Pick in #96. Even if you’ve never picked up an issue there’s a chance you’ve seen his work somewhere — he’s represented by galleries in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Albuquerque and Denver, and is currently preparing for a group show at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. In other words, William Betts is an artist that’s hitting his stride, and this year’s Annual Prize is one more item in a growing list of accolades.
William Betts
Selected by a jury of distinguished curators and previous jurors, Betts will receive a cash gift of $1,000, courtesy of the magazine, and a $500 gift card sponsored by Blick Art Materials, for supplies. And, thanks to NEXT ART CHICAGO, Betts will also have a painting hung at the fair in April.
The panel for the Annual Prize consists of three previous NAP jurors who have not made selections in the last year, including Bill Arning, Director, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), James Rondeau, Curator and Chair of Contemporary Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Peter Boswell, Senior Curator, Miami Art Museum.
Fellow NAP contributor Ellen Caldwell and I caught up with Betts earlier this week to talk about his work and process. – Matthew Smith, Washington, D.C. contributor
William Betts | Untitled YYZ 10-30-2010, acrylic on canvas, dimension5: 36″ x 72″
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Filed under: Q&A | Tags: 96, Chelsea James, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, Ellen C. Caldwell, Ellen Caldwell, NAP
Painter Chelsea James (NAP #96) captures everyday scenes that are soft and enduring. Personal nooks, quiet contemplative spaces and belongings, and everyday interiors are captured in a warm and nostalgic light.
Something about her work makes me want to live in these homes and spaces she both creates and reflects upon. – More by Los Angeles Contributor, Ellen Caldwell, after the jump!
Chelsea James | Bookshelf, 36″ x 36”, oil on panel
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Always, there is a gap between new ideas and public acceptance. Art history is rife with iconic figures and work which initially met with decades of rejection, not to mention a tendency toward posthumous adoration. It’s no leap to suppose that, whether due to market forces, critical trends, or perceived level of completion, an important chunk of today’s work remains in artists’ studios. As part of a new interview series “Not For Sale,” (inspired by the PS1 show of that title), I ask artists to discuss pieces which are unlikely to appear in a gallery.
With this is mind, I recently visited the Brooklyn studio of painter Angela Dufresne. Her sweeping, cinematic landscapes are formally similar to music: richly colored panoramas, mashing rock, film, and art history, are painted- or performed- with the sensitivity and virtuoso of a legendary electric guitarist. Angela describes her own process as such: the painter as performer, as cover artist, as groupie. - Whitney Kimball, NYC Contributor
Angela Dufresne | Bierstadt Cover with Fly Fishermen, 7 by 11 feet, 2010, oil on canvas
(more…)
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Filed under: Dallas, Q&A | Tags: Conduit Gallery, Dallas, Darke Gallery, Fish and Folw, Steven J. Miller
Steven J. Miller’s (NAP #96) landscapes are mythical and monumental, distilled and detailed, and most importantly, completely absorbing. Man and nature play hand in hand in his paintings.
Steven J. Miller| Banking, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 48 inches
On a recent plane ride, I couldn’t help but recall his folk-like imagery of airplanes sailing above mountains, minute in comparison to the power of nature and call of the wild. Miller’s paintings are powerful because of his distillment of reality. Planes hover above a combination of earth and manmade structures, yet somehow feel calming. His use of vivid color planes and flattened space heightens this alternative reality, creating something that sticks with you and makes the world feel a bit more fantastical. - Ellen Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor
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Filed under: Q&A, Vote! | Tags: 2012, BLICK Art Materials, Brian Fee, Erin Payne, NAP, NEXT ART CHICAGO, Reader's Choice
Erin Payne (NAP #93, MFA ANNUAL) has been selected by our blog readers as the winner of this year’s New American Paintings Reader’s Choice Prize. The Prize is a $500 gift card sponsored by Blick Art Materials, and, thanks to NEXT ART CHICAGO, Payne will also have a painting hung at the fair in April.
Thanks to our sponsors mentioned above, and to you, “The Reader,” for making this award possible (and fun). After the jump, read a conversation between Payne and our Austin Contributor, Brian Fee, and see more of Payne’s work.
Erin Payne
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Filed under: Collecting, DC, Q&A | Tags: Andy Warhol, Arlington Arts Center, Collecting, Corcoran, Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC, Erika Ranee, Faith Ringgold, Henry L. Thaggert, Jefferson Pinder, KARA WALKER, Lauren Woods, Matthew Smith, Maya Freelon Asante, Nadine Robinson, Nekisha Durrett, Philips Collection, Renee Cox, Renee Stout, Warhol, Washington Project for the Arts
Andy Warhol’s relationship to abstraction is charged. Despite a late-career painterlyimpulse — which included the Shadows series currently exhibiting at the Hirshhorn — his pictorial language based on representation fundamentally questioned the narrative of post-war painting as defined by Clement Greenberg. And the implications of Pop Art’s emergence over Abstract Expressionism were significant, not least for black artists as changes in collecting preferences opened new doors for art about the African American experience. This was the premise of a talk by art collector Henry Thaggert at the Philips Collection in Washington D.C. a few years back. It’s a perspective that Kara Walker seems to echo, at least indirectly, in a talk on Andy Warhol scheduled for next week at the Hirshhorn. I recently caught up with Thaggert to talk further about Warhol, get his thoughts on collecting art, and about his involvement in the local art scene. - Matthew Smith, D.C. Contributor
