Quote: Clyfford Still

Untitled, 1957, oil on canvas, 113 1/4 x 148 in.

"From the most ancient times the artist has been expected to perpetuate the values of his contemporaries. The record is mainly one of frustration, sadism, superstition, and the will to power. The anxious find comfort in the confusion of those artists who would walk beside them. The values involved, however, permit no peace, and mutual resentment is deep when it is discovered that salvation cannot be bought. We are now committed to an unqualified act, not illustrating outworn myths or contemporary alibis. The artist must accept total responsibility for what he executes. And the measure of his greatness will be in the depth of his insight and his courage in realizing his own vision."

- Clyfford Still

Moving Towards Abstraction With Rachael Wren @ The Art Students League

Rachael Wren, Echo, 2012, oil on linen, 48 x 48 in.

Rachael Wren
Moving Towards Abstraction


January 19-20
Saturday-Sunday

Fee $275
Instructor present every day
Enrollment limited to 12 students

In this workshop, participants will explore and experience the process of abstracting from the world around them.  Working from observation of natural objects, students will be guided through a series of drawings in which they investigate notions of rhythm, mark, shape, texture, and speed.  On the first day of the workshop, the emphasis will be on working quickly, making many small drawings, while the second session will focus on creating one or two sustained large drawings.  We will address the concept of scale as well as discuss strategies for developing an effective composition. Experimentation with a variety of materials such as charcoal, ink, collage, and paint will be encouraged as we work towards the goal of creating images that capture the essence of the objects we are looking at without being representational depictions of them.

Rachael Wren received a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from the University of Washington.  Her work has been exhibited at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the National Academy Museum, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, and The Painting Center, among others.  Rachael’s awards include the Julius Hallgarten Prize from the National Academy Museum and an Aljira Fellowship . She has attended residencies at the Saltonstall Foundation, the Byrdcliffe Art Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and has been a Visiting Artist-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina and at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. 

The Art Students League
215 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
212.247.4510

A Dialogue In Abstraction: An Online Exhibition @ Curating Contemporary

Sabine Tress, Pink Blue Brown, 2012, acrylic and brown tape on canvas, 49 x 43 in.

A Dialogue in Abstraction
curated by Brian Edmonds
Featuring work by: Paul Behnke, Sabine Tress, Michael Voss, Ky Anderson, Valerie Brennan, Clayton Colvin, and Patricia Satterlee


View this dynamic grouping of abstract painters in Curating Contemporary's sixth online exhibition here.

Upcoming and Ongoing: Jeffrey Cortland Jones, Dan Roach, And David T Miller

Jeffrey Cortland Jones

Tilting at Windmills

Curated by Dustin M. Price

featuring work by: Jeffrey Cortland Jones, Chris Kineke, Diana Behl, Jo Palmer, Brad Guarino, Nichole Maury, Rosalyn Richards, Sarah Stonefoot, John Chang, Garric Simonsen, Kuzana Ogg, Jillian Dickson, and Ellen Siebers

December 7 - January 22, 2013

The Wisconsin Union Galleries

Porter Butts Gallery

The University of Wisconsin

Dan Roach, Falling to the West, 2012, oil on panel, 19.5 x 14.5 cm.

Dan Roach: Recent Paintings and Drawings

December 8 - 30, 2012

Campden Gallery

High Street

Chipping Campden

Glouchestershire

GL55 AG6

David T Miller

Java Jive: New Work by David T Miller

Through December 2012

Green Line Cafe

Powelton Village

3649 Lancaster Avenue

Philadelphia, PA

*All images courtesy of the artists

LOOKOUTOUTLOOK @ Giampietro Gallery

Lucy Mink

Dead Trees, 2012, oil on linen on panel, 20 x 34 in.

Featuring work by: Jake Berthot, Gregory Amenoff, Dushko Petrovich, Sharon Horvath, Thomas Nozkowski, Clint Jukkala, Melissa Brown, Becky Yazdan, Peter Ramon, Will Lustenader, and Lucy Mink

LOOKOUTOUTLOOK
Curated by Christopher Joy
Opening: Friday, November 16, 5 - 8 PM
November 16 - December 21, 2102
Giampietro Gallery
315 Peck Street
New Haven, CT 06513

Culture / Nature @ Sideshow Gallery

For further information on this exhibition @ Sideshow and other must see shows

follow the link here.

Studio Visit With Melissa Dunn

On a recent trip to Memphis, TN, I was able to stop by the studio of the painter, Melissa Dunn.

Dunn's abstracted compositions have their origin in drawings and collages based on a wide range of source material. Yet once the paintings, proper, have begun, a reliable intuition comes to fore. At this point, Dunn alternates between that intuition and practiced, organized, formal decisions. The result is real painting that springs from seeds sown alongside Whitman's grass with all the intellect and romance that would imply.

Melissa Dunn in her studio, Memphis, TN, 2012.

To view more of Melissa Dunn's work follow the link here.

*All paintings © Melissa Dunn.

New Paintings

All work is acrylic on canvas, aprox. 48 x 50 in. and as yet untitled.

© Paul Behnke

The Lure Of Paris @ Loretta Howard Gallery

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 society, and the romance of the pre-war avant-garde, or the chance to see works by Vuillard, Bonnard, Matisse, etc., that they knew only from black and white reproductions. In most cases the women artists had accompanied their significant others, while like the generation before them, the Afro-American artists, sought to escape the racism that was endemic in the States.

 Watch a video about the exhibition featuring commentary by Ostrow here.

The Lure of Paris

Sept. 6 - Nov. 3, 2012

Loretta Howard Gallery

525 531 W 26th Street

New York, NY 10001