Structure and Imagery

Between Numbers Four and Five , 2012, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 48 in. Between Numbers Four and Five (detail) Between Numbers Four and Five   (detail) Between Numbers Four and Five   (detail) Between Numbers Four and Five   (detail) Robin's Red , 2012, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 48 in. Robin's Red (detail) Robin's Red  (detail) Robin's Red  (detail) * All artwork © Paul Behnke 2012.

Sea Wall , 2012, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 20 x 20 in. Above and Below , 2012, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 52 x 55 in. Echo , 2012, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 28 x 42 in. From the Press Release: An illustrated catalogue with an essay by Matthew Guy Nichols will accompany the exhibition. Elizabeth Harris Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings titled behind the sun by Carolanna Parlato. This will be her third exhibition with the gallery. Carolanna Parlato will exhibit recent abstract works on canvas. Ms. Parlato’s paintings are instinctive and process based. Although predominantly abstract they concern themselves with the processes and forces of nature. The physical movement intrinsic to her process remains evident in this new body of work. Her actions propel the paint; large gestural sweeps of brushes, sanded and rubbed in passages, raw color poured onto the surface are all elements of her repertoir...

Loretta Howard Gallery is pleased to present The Lure of Paris. Driven by the city’s rich artistic history and funded largely by the GI bill, American artists took root in Paris starting after 1945. As excerpted from the exhibition essay by Sol Ostrow: In the 1950s, with the triumph of the New York School, the United States for the first time in history had produced visual art of international consequence. Yet, artists from the United States and from all over Europe continued to flock to Paris just as the center of the western art world was shifting to New York,. Funded by the GI Bill, those from the States came with the intent of studying at such schools as the Académie Julian, Académie de la Grande Chaumièr and L’ecole des Beaux Arts, or at the  atelier  of Jacques Villon or Fernand Leger’s Studio. Their reasons varied. Some saw it as an opportunity to be cosmopolitan or to satisfy their wanderlust; others may have imagined the Paris of Le Jazz Hot, café s...

Joanne Mattera, Untitled (for now), 2012, graphite on 300 hotpres Fabriano, 22 x 30 in. Joanne Mattera has posted an online exhibition that showcases, in depth, how fifty artists have explored the possibilities of the achromatic hue. Mattera curated the grouping by choosing works submitted by Facebook friends and from elsewhere on the web. I'm very happy to  be included along with so many terrific artists. Visit Joanne's blog and view all the work  here  .

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Installation view, 2012 Last year’s 6th Terrace Annual attracted more than 200 entries and brought together a group of over 50 artists whose work was installed alongside the previous years 120 entries and shown outdoors in a walled 2000 sq/ft former piece of wasteland. The exhibition has remained in the space, exposed to the elements and has shifted, faded, broken, rotted, remained and, in some cases, disappeared over the past 4 years.  Selected Previous Artists: Paul Behnke, Maxine Beuret, Diane Bielik, Karl Bielik, Kiera Blakey, Boyle&Shaw, Annabelle Dalby, Annie Davey, Julia Defferary, Rob Flowers, Adrian Galpin, Matt Golden, Julia Hamilton, Ross Hansen, Alex Hermon, Russell Heron, Zarah Hunt, Eemyun Kang, David Leapman, Heidi Locher, Vibeke Luther, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Lorna Milburn, Nicola Morrison, Danka Nisevic, Emer O'Brien,  Joanna Peace, Andrew Robertson, Matthew Robinson, Will Robson- Scott, Rachel Russell,...

I'm very happy to share the details of my upcoming, one person show in Philadelphia... Ariele's Table , 2012, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 inches. Paul Behnke : Like Giants an illustrated catalog will be available with an essay by John Yau Opening Reception: Sunday, September 9, 12 - 5 PM September 9 - 30, 2012 The Rosenfeld Gallery 113 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Helen Ferguson Crawford , Zero to Bone, acrylic, oil and graphite, 12 x 12 in. Spaces Helen Ferguson Crawford, Eva McGill-Oliver, Loretta Paraguassu, Martha Stiles August 10 - October 21, 2012 One Twelve Gallery 112 Krog Street, Suite 5 Atlanta, Georgia 30307 404.606.0072 Tues - Fri: 11 - 4 PM or by appointment

Rudolph Valentino To the Film Industry in Crisis by Frank O'Hara Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants, nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you, promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry, it's you I love! In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love. And give credit where it's due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me how to be bad and not bad rather than good (and has lately availed herself of this information), not to the Catholic Church which is at best an oversolemn introduction to cosmic entertainment, not to the American Legion, which hates everybody, but to you, glorious Silver Screen, tragic Technicolor, amorous Cinemascope, stretching Vistavision and startling Stereophonic Sound, with all your heavenly dimensions and re...

A-Ah! This Life Is So Everyday , 1973, screenprint, 15.8 x 13.8 in. "No artist of his generation has contemplated the comedy of life with greater intelligence, wit or courage than Patrick Caulfield." -Mel Gooding Portrait of the artist.

From the New York Times obituary on the Arts Beat Blog: "Robert Hughes, the eloquent, combative art critic and historian who lived with an operatic flair and wrote with a sense of authority that owed more to Zola or Ruskin than to his own century, died Monday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 74 and had lived for many years in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. He died after a long illness, according to his wife, Doris Downes." by Randy Kennedy Read the full entry here .

(click to enlarge) Pocket Utopia

Clocca (magenta form) , 2012, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 46 in. Happy to be mentioned in Jed Perl's review included in the August 2, 2012 issue of The New Republic. From the article: " I wrote down the names of artists whose work struck me with some poetic spark. . . . What held me in Paul Behnke’s cheeky canvas, with its few shapes in pink, yellow, and orange, was not the dose of zany irony that he brings to geometric abstraction so much as his freshness of attack and his feeling for the power of color to give a medium-sized painting a bold sense of scale." Read the full review here .

Memphis based painter, Hamlett Dobbins has spent his summer in the studio producing ink and acrylic drawings based on meditations. The forms of the simpler compositions possess a tantric purity while the color evokes the layered, jewel like preciousness of Russian icons.  Only in scale do Dobbins' drawings defy this reading. The medium size just begins to flower into the viewers space. And one can imagine the work larger still - becoming a quiet and all consuming consciousness. Seven drawings from this series are currently on view through August 31 at David Lusk Gallery in Memphis, TN. All works: Untitled (For M.M.Y.) , 2012, ink and acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 in. * Images © the artist.

Elizabeth Sheppell , Fat Series 17, 2012, oil on canvas, 6 x 6 in. Hamlett Dobbins , 2012, Untitled (for M.M.Y.), ink and acrylic on paper, 30 x 22 in. Dwayne Butcher , fried chicken tastes good, 2012, acrylic and ink on canvas, 8 x 10 in. Price Is Right Opening: Friday, August 3, 6 - 9 PM August 1 - 31, 2012 David Lusk Gallery 4540 Poplar Avenue Memphis, TN 38117 * All images courtesy of the artists and David Lusk Gallery.