Structure and Imagery

queens command, 2018, 7.5 x 5 in, oil on pine Julian Bender is a painter living and working in New England. Bender's paintings display a structural hierarchy of form and color. They eschew an all over composition in favor of an amalgamation of forms. When the imagery veers more toward the figurative a subject / ground relationship can start to become evident but the distinction can very quickly disolve, charging the surface with a satisfying ambiguity. bdyfrgn, 2018, 8.5 x 5 in, oil on pine atcq, 2018, 5 x 6 in, oil on cedar From the Artists Statement: My materials are pencil, crayon and oil stick on wood. I consider myself a student of the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan. I have been absolutely enthralled with his work for almost a decade and it has altered me deeply. Recently I am most touched by the work of Ezra Pound. My favorite painter, at the moment is, Francisco Mendes Moreira. In school I studied musical composition and am a music school drop ...

Jeffrey Morabito: Birds and Flowers, Vases and Windows On view through March 1 at SFA Projects A detail from the precious image. From the Press Release: Dating back to 10th -century China, bird-and-flower painting is a genre of painting that consists not only of birds and flowers, but plants, fish, insects, dogs and cats. Because of his multiracial heritage, residing in many different countries through his career, Morabito’s artistic identity is deeply grounded in both the Chinese and Italian traditions. As both cultural insider and observational voyeur, Morabito is compelled to reexamine said traditions to find new modes of deconstruction, examination, and interpretation. Why is a flower important when placed side by side with an animal? Is it a symbol of personal or universal beauty? Can quotidian modern objects like tennis balls be recast as a stand in for the flower in contemporary life? Morabito recreates the bird-and-flower genre by seeing objects as pictorial con...

A detail from a painting by Jake Berthot from JAKE! On view at Betty Cunningham Gallery thru Feb. 23 A work from Pat Passlof: The Brush is the Finger of the Brain On view at the Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation thru April 11. Painter Dave Pollack takes in Passlof's Untitled, 1995-96. A detail from Passlof's Untitled, 1995 Gandy Brodie from the exhibit Post previously on view at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects .