Structure and Imagery

A small painting from Musa's sketch book, approximately 12 x 9 in. Recently I paid a visit to the live/work space of Meer Musa in Ridgewood, Queens. Musa's expressionistic, deliberate paintings and mixed media drawings offer a bold, graphic punch that works well in tandem with sensitive, personal narratives. Subjects range from dreams and visions spurred by meditation to intimate and inward looking, quiet portraits in which the subjects are often surrounded by and merge with floral or other natural motifs. The half obscured subjects present a vulnerability and are as yet afraid to come out from behind their camouflage. In addition to his painting Meer is also co-director of Trans-cen-der Art Group . I hope you enjoy this photo essay of our visit.   From the Artist's Website: Meer is inspired by spirituality, nature, and people, and the art he creates is deeply informed by these influences. His daily meditation practice motivates hi...

Bayadere Triptych in Purcell's studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn Studio door- Star Power. On Sunday I spent a fantastic afternoon visiting two of my favorite painters, Ann Purcell and David Pollack . It was a real pleasure to see more of Ann's work from the ambitious, muscular triptychs to the taciturn, banshee's wail of a series called the Kali Poem Series . Purcell recently mounted a brilliant, extremely well reviewed and successful exhibition at Berry Campbell in Chelsea. For more information on Ann's work visit the links here  and here . Ann Purcell talks painting as I listen. Photo: Robin Stout Purcell speaking about working in a triptych format. A balance of white and black from the Purcell's Kali   Poem Series Ann Purcell surrounded by paintings from her Kali Poem Series Two more stirring works from the Kali Poem Series In the racks. Three painters: Dave Pollack, Ann Purcell and Paul Behnke in Purcell...

Recently I had the great pleasure to pay a visit to the studio of a painter I very much admire. Ana Wieder Blank combines religion, myth, and the act of protest to produce highly personal, expressive paintings, sculptures and performances.  In the resulting works, aforementioned mediums are blurred allowing each discipline to conjure a myriad of formal and conceptual concerns alluding to modernist leanings while lending a strong, unique voice in reaction to the very contemporary and ongoing injustices that women, LGBTQ, people of color and immigrants live and work under every day. Ana is from Silver Springs, MD and studied at The American University and Pratt Institute. She lives and works in New York City. For more information on Ana Wieder Blank's work, including her striking and recent mural project, please visit her website . Ana Wieder Blank in her studio in Long Island City, 2018 The Artist's Statement My current pr...

William Bradley in his studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, 2017. Last week I was pleased to visit the studio of York, UK born painter William Bradley . Bradley has recently relocated to Brooklyn from Los Angeles but manages to maintain an active presence in the two cities as well as London. I first became aware of his work upon visiting his Tall Tales solo exhibition at Galerie Richard, NY  in 2013 and have kept up with him ever since. Bradley's paintings occupy an impalpable space between the subtly poetic and a contemporary punch. With an elegant eye for composition and a hardscrabble enthusiasm for paint and the abstract reality it is capable of invoking, Bradley reimagines and deconstructs seminal formal mainstays associated with the New York School and modernist abstraction.   The results are intelligent, buoyant paintings that hint at an admiration of the tradition's recent past while they undermine and rebuild it into a strong contemporary v...