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Kay H. Lin is an abstract painter. Her technically rich and spiritually engaging works take their place as a unique voice that crosses boundaries to unite Western and Eastern influences.
Ms. Lin's paintings capture an ongoing dialogue between the Eastern aesthetic sensibilities of her classical training and modern Western abstraction. Thematically, Ms. Lin's works are like poetry, at the interface of thought and emotion exploring logic, creation, life and inspiration. A distinctive visual language demonstrates an adept touch with color and a fully developed command of materials. Ms. Lin's artwork re-interprets the feeling and philosophy of life with musical rhythm and melody, as a form of poetry.
For the past 20 years, Ms. Lin has lived and worked in New York. She graduated with a BFA from the Taiwan National University of the Arts with a major in Painting and minor in Printmaking. She also earned a Masters degree from New York University with a major in Painting and minor in Multimedia. Her works have been shown in the Chelsea Art Museum, Taipei Cultural Center, Kuandu Museum in Taipei, Frost Art Museum in Miami, Moscow Museum of Modern Art and collected throughout Asia, Europe and the U.S.
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Andrew Stahl 'New Paintings 2010'
Andrew Stahl's paintings approach cultural differences and connections using pictorial language, imagination and figuration. Images become vehicles to carry painterly experimentation. The recent work is underpinned by a series of residencies in Thailand and also in China (Guangzhou). This set of paintings appears figurative but their heart is abstract. In some of the paintings Kumiko dressed in a Japanese kimono provides a structure for pattern, detail and focus. The landscape which surrounds the figure provides a field to revel in the materiality of paint. Often the painterly quality overwhelms some of the image. It can drip and obliterate. Other paintings such as ‘Bleeding Cherry Blossoms’ the artist finds himself being inundated by the pink of blossoms.
Andrew Stahl has exhibited widely both in the UK and internationally. Recent solo shows include Ardel Gallery Bangkok 2009 and 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok 2006, (both with Panya Vijinthanasarn); Matthew Bown Gallery, London, 2007; Robert Steele Gallery, New York 2007. Recent Group shows include 2010 Select, Peppercannister Gallery, Dublin; 2009 Painting of the 80s, Matthew Bown Gallerie, Berlin;2008, Same as it ever was, University of the Arts, London; 2008 Stew, at Artspace, London; The British Council show Monologue/Dialogue featuring artists from the UK and Thailand, (Part 2 in London, 2008 and Part 1 in Bangkok, 2006).
His work is represented in several major public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Arts Council England, the British Council, the Government art Collection and the British Museum.
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'Atelier' Martyn Jones Solo-show, Robert Steele Gallery, New York.
The Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to announce 'Atelier', a second major Solo-show of paintings by Welsh contemporary artist Martyn Jones, whichwill open on March 24th 2010. The Robert Steele Gallery has represented Martyn Jones as a gallery artist since 2005 and is situated in Chelsea on West 25th Street, Manhattan. During 2008, Martyn Jones staged his first major solo show 'Overland' at the gallery. Following the success of this exhibition, the 'Atelier' series will comprise of new paintings which are specific to place and time.
'My work is descriptive in essence – natural shape and form taken from the world at large. My paintings have been described as capturing a natural ambiguity, but that ambiguity should not be construed as being manufactured in any way.'
Jones graduated M.A. Fine Art, at Chelsea School of Art, London and was awarded Junior Fellowship at Bath Academy of Art. Among his tutors were the British artists Adrian Heath and Patrick Heron.
Jones' work has been exhibited widely in U.K., Europe and U.S.A. including the National Gallery of Wales and Wales International Centre, Chrysler Building, New York. His paintings continue to be sought after by numerous public and private collectors.
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Profile
After a brief career in professional tennis, Rachel von Roeschlaub studied chemistry at the University of Montana and received an M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of Oregon. As a molecular biologist at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, she participated in cancer research and managed the genome facility. Rachel traveled to monasteries and schools in India to introduce Tibetan monks, students and teachers to modern biotechnology. In 2007, Rachel founded a non-profit organization, TB Aware Inc., to fight tuberculosis within the Tibetan community that she worked with in India.
Rachel's passion for science and art intertwined in 2003 as her whimsical acrylic paintings of biological themes were featured on the covers of leading industry magazines and journals. She has exhibited her paintings at art galleries in New York, Boston, Maine, and at the American Association of Arts and Science in Washington, DC.
Rachel's most recent series of work incorporates fingerprints personally provided by Nobel Prize recipients, entertainers and philanthropists. A portrait of the subject is layered over the fingerprint, leaving the viewer with both a biological mark and a more subjective expression of the person within Rachel's characteristically vibrant canvas.
Her private commissions include paintings for Dr. James Watson, Glenn Close, Mike Mills, bass guitarist for R.E.M., and a mural for the entry into the Harvard University Bio Labs.
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With continued interest in the themes of scale and numerical extremes, Timothy Paul Myers' newest work, parts repeated, deepens his exploration of objects in repetition and introduces his process of building paintings through the manipulation of his new compositional materials: "parts." Conceived of as mobile molecules of color, the parts began as 30 boxes of pencils hand-cut into 51,840 pieces. These pieces were then washed, sanded, racked, painted, and dried to form fully finished parts. Next, the parts were sorted, composed and adhered into their final configuration. Myers' spare composition showcases the part as a newly iconic material and establishes the part as the primary building blocks for his future works.
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Although Keizo's finished works are always conceived from a single block of granite, many are comprised of two equal and interlocking parts, with curving and twisting shapes derived from complex geometrical forms. The artist has developed an ingenious technique for dividing these stones, drilling at precise intervals into the granite midway through from each side and aligning the holes so that they join in the center. Keizo's personal style involves refining the drill marks resulting from the process of dividing the stone. These refined drill marks then become a strong feature of the final sculpture.
As Nathaniel Friedman, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany – SUNY, observes, mathematics-inspired art such as Keizo's is an ancient conception. "There were artworks based on geometry in many early civilizations such as Islamic art, African art, and American Indian art. Modern artists such as Naum Gabo, his brother Antoine Pevsner, and particularly Max Bill, Maurits Escher, and François Morellet were influenced by mathematics."
For 34 years and across four continents, Keizo's work has been seen in numerous exhibitions. The artist has won several important awards, including the Asahi Newspaper Prize and the Citizen Prize at the 13th Kobe Sumarikyu Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition. Most recently he accepted the prestigious Nagano Sculpture Award. Keizo, a graduate of Kyoto City University, is Curator of Japanese Artists for the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, holds memberships in the Japan Art Association and the Hyogo Prefecture Sculpture Association, and serves on the committee of planning and management at the Asago Sculpture Museum.
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Now in its 10th year of existence in the United States Robert Steele Gallery explores the art of the Western Desert in the new 402 gallery space. Carrying on with its commitment to Aboriginal art Robert Steele Gallery's first official show presents works never before exhibited as well as some star pieces. The new space gives these works an animate and natural feel with the sandy colored walls and bright lighting.
Presenting works from: Henry Dixon Rex Granites Mick Namarari Mantua Napanangka Walangkura Napanangka Mitjili Napurrula Ningura Napurrula Ronnie Tjampitjinpa Long Tom Tjapanangka
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The gallery will be closed for vacation on 8/4/09 opening again on 8/18/09. During this time the gallery will be open on appointment. Please contact the gallery for further information on hours.
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"Summer in Suite 402" is the first exhibition for Robert Steele Gallery since the move to suite 402 in the 511 building. The exciting new space offers the viewer a variation from austere bleached white walls to a more natural and intimate exhibition space. This group exhibition starts a brand new chapter in the life of the gallery, which is celebrating its 10th year in the United States. The gallery will continue to enhance its reputation by representing contemporary painters and sculptors of international standing.
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The Robert Steele Gallery has moved to a new space upstairs at suite 402 in the same building. We will be focusing more on our work in the secondary art market while continuing exhibiting our current gallery artists.
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Ms. Lin graduated with a BFA from the National Institute of the Arts in Taiwan with a major in Painting and minor in Printmaking. She also earned a Masters degree from New York University with a major in Painting and minor in Multimedia. For the past 20 years, Ms. Lin has lived and worked in New York. Her technically rich and spiritually engaging works take their place as a unique voice that crosses boundaries to unite Western and Eastern influences. Her works have been collected in Asia, Europe and in the U.S.
In this exhibition, Ms. Lin presents ten large acrylic and oil paintings entitled "Endless" capturing the sequence of the four seasons, year after year, as with life. The paintings are on canvas scrolls and were created together with original Chinese poems written in calligraphy. Both bold and original, these scrolls extend up to 15 feet either vertically or horizontally with a dramatic expanse of gesture and movement. Together with the poems, these works immerse the viewer into the dreams of the seasons.
Ms. Lin's paintings capture an ongoing dialogue between the Eastern aesthetic sensibilities of her classical training and modern Western abstraction. Thematically, Ms. Lin's paintings are at the interface of thought and emotion, examining logic, creation, life and inspiration. A distinctive visual language demonstrates an adept touch with color and a fully developed command of materials. Ms. Lin's poetry re-interprets the feeling and philosophy of real life with musical rhythm and melody, as do her artworks.
Laurie Frick researches processes of the mind and works to make cut snips of paper map to the topology of imagined brain synapses to recreate the experiences of a normal day. Sold-out shows in New York and Austin in 2007 and 2008 reinforce the notion that she's reaching into the subliminal mind to recreate a familiar experience or recollection for the viewer.
Frick spent decades participating in the creation of the computer products by which all of us address the on-line content appearing on our laptop screens. Then, to our benefit, Frick stepped away from engagement with consumer technology and took on the challenges of creating a contemporary art-practice. Frick commits to her art with the same intensity and drive as this former high-powered Silicon Valley executive once pursued new technology markets.
This pursuit has led to the creation of extraordinary --- beautiful and complex -- visual fields built as collage with their elements sourced in the quotidian ephemera of contemporary print culture: paperback book covers, magazine spreads and newspaper pull-outs. As Frick describes, "I started using magazines for collage, and then paperback book covers because I both liked the intense color, and could use color that was different than colors you could mix with paint. I thought if these are the colors that you see constantly, why not use these directly?"
Previously an executive in high-technology, she may be one of the few artists who hold both an MBA and an MFA. She's been awarded residencies at the American Academy in Rome, Jentel Arts and upcoming at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and the historic Yaddo Foundation.
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'unbound' at Robert Steele Gallery speaks to a quiet unraveling of known ideas to ideas more prescient; a loosening of perceived constraints. As I continue to paint, I discover that I am more open to the meaning of the paint and its particular inference and reason.
My work skates the edge between abstraction and figuration. One slip and you slide into a discernible meaning, while a turn in another direction brings you deeper into an abstracted interior 'landscape'. I like that 'between' zone where an image is perceived but not fully understood or known immediately.
I am very interested in the body and how the body/mind perceives visual stimuli. Some of the work in 'unbound' refers to what I call 'nerve' and 'retinal' images. I have spent some time 'seeing' with my eyes closed; watching the color combinations on my mental screen while meditating and paying attention to the residual color that lingers when I close my eyes. These colors and images infiltrate my paintings.
Other work in 'unbound' references the saturated 'lowcountry' landscape of the Georgia coast and its marshes, a powerful draw to the edge of the continent. I live on a tidal creek and watch the ebb and flow of constant tides with a dramatic tidal range. This landscape exists cellularly in my body. It inhabits me.
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The exhibition Counting Lines will feature wooden wall hung sculptures as well as a series of silkscreen prints. In sculpture, the relationship between the materials that I work with and my actions is the basis for my artwork. The grain in wood results from years of surviving through various natural cycles. I make cuts methodically across the wood's grain, imposing a pattern on the material; breaks are made with the grain, letting the wood's natural pattern respond. I use burning, stacking, scraping and rusting to reiterate the form's passage through time.
I became interested in silkscreen because of the way that the plates or stencils are prepared. Unlike etching or woodblock, the plates for creating the print are made by painting or drawing on a transparent surface. This purely two-dimensional approach made me think more in terms of a painter rather than a sculptor even though the designs are much like ones that I use in sculpture. Spatial relationships and repetition of shapes still dictate the composition but color is an important component in these prints. The modulations of the designs in the backgrounds of the silkscreens are reminiscent of patterns I encounter when I'm working with wood or stone. I find the relentless repetition of natural cycles and the varied forms that they produce inspiring.
The geometric quality of my work alludes to the rational style in which we approach examination and understanding. It's ironic that our ability to reason has separated us from nature and we use reasoning to help us understand it. By exploring the essence of the materials that I work with, I strive to unite our need for order with the illusive nature of our environment.
Legends Through Patterns from the Past Featuring Alick Tipoti and Dennis Nona
January 22 - Mar 6, 2009
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Limited edition linocuts, etchings and sculptures by two of Australia's leading indigenous artists. These contemporary works have been inspired by the ancient myths, legends and culture of the Torres Strait Islands.
Not since Alfred Haddon's Cambridge University sponsored exhibition in the late nineteenth century has the material culture of the Torres Strait enjoyed such international interest. Ironically, it was the work Haddon collected that has inspired Dennis Nona and Alick Tipoti, two artists who occupy key positions in the contemporary revival of Torres Strait art.
The two artists, who are in their mid thirties, come from the sparsely populated island of Badu in the Western Torres Strait. The traditional carving skills of their ancestors have been adapted to produce very contemporary, complex and highly intricate linoleum prints and metal sculptures.
Their work is seen in all the major museums in Australia and also in a number of important institutions in UK, France and USA.
The Robert Steele Gallery in New York will be hoisting an exhibition of over 70 of their works in January and February 2009.
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Thaddeus Beal stopped practicing law to challenge himself in a world without language. He turned to art.
He was not surprised by Marxist analysis of art with its appeal to origins as the final explanation. He had grown up in such verbal analysis when studying history and law.
What surprised and disturbed him was New Art History and its ideological method of verbal capture, which can be broadly categorized as deconstructive. There seemed neither room for nor interest in what used to be called aesthetic -- where the art object has an existence above and beyond its place as a political statement or a cultural object. Where it cannot be captured. Where it disables the verbal. Where there is another world, another sense of time.
In response, he had sought to make work that has to be physically experienced. Work that slow things down in an effort to summon up otherwise imperceptible forces. There are images, to be sure, and an author, but there is also a detached physical presence, an inherent order and an abstract sweep, which dissociates the author from the work. The dialogue then is between the viewer and the piece.
His process is calculated to uncover this immanent structure. It begs for accidents, for irregularities, for changes of direction. Yet an underlying order is maintained. Tension is thereby created and energy generated. And the viewer is invited to provide more, as he does when watching flames in a fire or light reflecting off of water.
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These paintings are concerned with language, how we as a culture qualify and quantify our existence through the use of language and measuring. We create a 'package' to avoid real interaction.
These are slow paintings in their construction, but also for the viewer. They change with the light and the position of the viewer, and the full complexities of surface cannot be appreciated in one glance. These are paintings that require a commitment of time in which to subtly interact and develop a relationship.
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Ed Smith's work is an extension of his belief in the dignity of labor and the inherent integrity of conflict. These aspects of the human condition are the subjects of "Disasters" and "Republican Landscapes", two series of monotypes evoking the anguish, pain, and terror of man's inhumanity to man and, ultimately, of his own inner struggles. Smith further addresses questions of moral judgment with "New Forms", a series of cast bronze "heroic" figures symbolizing the dilemma of man trapped in an age of irony. Critic D.D. Lombardi has likened Smith to a "modern-day Albert Pinkham Ryder"; playwright Edward Albee has called Smith's work "powerful, provocative and disturbing."
An influential artist and teacher, Ed Smith is Professor of Art at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and has taught at universities and colleges throughout the United States and Europe. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Sculpture and Drawing, a Ford Foundation fellowship, and many other awards and honors. Smith's work has been the subject of more than thirty exhibitions, and is represented internationally in numerous private collections and public institutions. These include the British Museum, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Hood Museum of Art, and Yale University. His work has also been the subject of writing and reviews in publications such as the New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, and Art News.
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The Ballinglen Series is inspired by travels in Ireland and a residency at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland. Upon returning to the U.S. with a suitcase full of works on paper, I began a series of large oil paintings entitled "Ceide Field". Measuring up to 60 inches and just off-square, the paintings emphasize the Irish landscape through abstract special loops and repeated mark making. Influenced by the peat bogs of the "Ceide Field" County Mayo, the coastal rock formations in Easky, County Sligo, the Slieve League cliffs of County Donegal, and the landscape of the Burren, County Clare, this work continues my exploration of the daily ritual of place, realized in paint by dramatic lines, gesture, and color.
"The CÈide Fields in Ballycastle, County Mayo is the oldest known field systems in the world, over five and a half millennia old. It is a unique Neolithic landscape of world importance, which has changed our perception of our Stone Age ancestors. The remains of stone field walls, houses and megalithic tombs are preserved beneath a blanket of peat over several square miles."
"The Burren lies south of Galway in County Clare, Ireland. The name Burren is from the Irish - bhoireann, meaning a stony place. Its formation has lain unspoiled since the ice-age and is composed of karstic limestone, the largest area of such in Western Europe."
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"Divided Forms: Works by Keizo Ushio" is a rare solo exhibition by this internationally-known Japanese stone-sculptor. Although Keizo's finished works are always conceived from a single block of granite, many are comprised of two equal and interlocking parts, with curving and twisting shapes derived from complex geometric forms. The artist has developed an ingenious technique for dividing these stones, drilling at precise intervals into the granite midway through from each side and aligning the holes so that they join in the center. Furthermore, Keizo's personal style involves refining the drill marks resulting from the process of dividing the stone. These refined drill marks then become a strong feature of the final sculpture. As Nathaniel Friedman, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at the University at Albany – SUNY, observes, mathematics-inspired art such as Keizo's is an ancient conception. "There were artworks based on geometry in many early civilizations such as Islamic art, African art, and American Indian art. Modern artists such as Naum Gabo, his brother Antoine Pevsner, and particularly Max Bill, Maurits Escher, and Francois Morellet were influenced by mathematics."
For 34 years and across four continents, Keizo's work has been seen in numerous exhibitions. The artist has won several important awards, including the Asahi Newspaper Prize and the Citizen Prize at the 13th Kobe Sumarikyu Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition. Most recently he accepted the prestigious Nagano Sculpture Award. Keizo, a graduate of Kyoto City University, is Curator of Japanese Artists for Australia's annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, holds memberships in the Japan Art Association and the Hyogo Prefecture Sculpture Association, and serves on the committee of planning and management at the Asago Sculpture Museum.
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"Passages" attempts to convey through color and form the experience of changing energy and physical movement. Says the artist:
This period of my work focuses on the expressive qualities of paper, water, ink, and pigment. Initially, I let the materials have full play as I search for unique color relationships. I try to be an observer, watching for new ideas as the materials interact, rather than imposing a pre-designed concept. My love of torn edges and unusual shapes leads to deconstructing the paper. As the painting continues to develop, I reconstruct and combine forms to create unexpected tensions. Notions about transit and transformation remain present as I work. The process is free of traditional brushes. I use a more intimate, tactile approach as I work directly on the surface.
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Featuring works by: Betsy Cain, Nick Gaetano, Josh Garber, Martyn Jones, Alan Kleiman, David McKay, David Moore, Preston Orr, Bob Penrose, Rachel von Roeschlaub, Graham Sears, Joe Segal, Ed Smith, Keizo Ushio, and Arnette Jens Zerbe.
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Anne Raymond approaches each painting as a window with sight lines — implying vastness and space beyond the edges of the canvas — as if nature is being viewed through a window with serenity at its core. "My work has a center free of restlessness. The wild energy and abandon of drawing — marks and lines — around this center accentuate its serenity. The center of space expresses a seeking of light — and a seeking to return light into an object. There is a volume implied by the linear quality of calligraphic and sinuous drawing."
Raymond's work has been featured in exhibitions in galleries throughout the United States. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions at museums and galleries, including at the Islip Art Museum in Islip, New York and the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton. Her work is in the permanent collections of major museums including those of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work is found as well in the collections of many leading firms including Pfizer, Inc.; United Airlines; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Colgate Palmolive Company; Nuveen Securities; Saks Fifth Avenue; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; and Bellagio Hotel and Resort.
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Rapeeporn or Susu Pianchupattana, a Thai artist, was born in Bangkok, Thailand and moved to New York in August 2002. She graduated from the New York Studio School and received a full fellowship as a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Susu has won many awards including Hohenberg Travel Grant and full scholarship - Drawing Marathon in Orvieto, Italy. She then took a chance to travel to Italy during the summer 2006. Currently she lives and works in New York City.
"My current work is inspired by my Italy trip and intensive artist retreat to Skowhegan woods where I quickly found that nature is never still, never calm, but always vibrating, violent and ever-changing. These are paintings of the constant current flowing through all life and I have tried to capture certain moments when nature collides with itself. Exercises in maintaining an open channel for this energy, my work is all about the immediacy of painting outdoors, combined with memory and imagination. I am a city person and was incensed by the beauty and the mystery of land I never get to see."
A twelve-year career in advertising that involved extensive traveling exposed her to the world's most exciting cities. Cities are a great source of inspiration and her desire to find and paint an inner peace has been brought into stark relief by the many physical and emotional challenges of this way of life.
"I am not a religious artist nor do I focus on religious themes in my painting, but I am from the Buddhist nation of Thailand and my country's spiritual views do inform the way I see the world and the manner in which I approach my work. It is clear looking at my development as a painter over the past five years that my work has evolved from more strongly representational forms to the abstract. As my influences amass, my ability expands, and my ideas grow, it seems that a balance of both styles needs to be found. It is a journey from the familiar into the unfamiliar and where I want to paint is in the space between."
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"Robb's resonant images are the product of an increasingly rare intelligence — the capacity to muse visually, with skill, grace, erudition, and a certain wry humor, on a topic as complex as Venice. She offers us works made with one unsentimental eye on the mundane... and one on the liminality they mask. Images of women, with a hint of maybe a 'little death' in Venice just round the corner, the city as womb of a culture, the function of water in the life cycle, it's all here."
— Iain Biggs, 2008
Carole Robb was born in Port-Glasgow Scotland and studied painting at the Glasgow School of Art and the University of Reading England (MFA 1979). Major awards in painting include the Prix de Rome to Italy, Greater London Arts Association and a Fulbright Fellowship to USA. Solo exhibitions include the South London Art Gallery, AIR Gallery London, J.T. Fassbinder Gallery Berlin, Forum Gallery New York, and C'a d'Oro Gallery Rome. Public collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Imperial War Museum, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Robb has worked in London, Venice, New York, and Rome. The works in this exhibition were made in Venice and New York. Robb lives in New York City.
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Carole Robb, one of the leading figurative painters in the world, will exhibit a collection of her work at the Marist College Art Gallery, located in the Steel Plant Studios on Beck Place in Poughkeepsie. The exhibit opens with a reception on Thursday, January 24, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and continues through February 21. It is free and open to the public.
"When one thinks of current figurative painting, one thinks of the work of Carole Robb," said Marist gallery director Ed Smith. "Carole is an artist who brings tradition, history and narrative to viewers so that we find ourselves standing in the present, past and future. The Marist gallery is extremely fortunate to host exhibitions of tremendous character and impact. Carole Robb adds to that great lineage in every way."
Robb was born in Port-Glasgow, Scotland. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the Alternative Tate Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Arts in England. Robb's work is included in collections such as London's Tate Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum, and New York's Museum of Modern Art, among others. Her awards include the Prix de Rome and a Fulbright Fellowship. Robb's distinguished teaching career includes the Royal College of Art, Goldsmith's College, the Slade School of Fine Art, Cleveland Institute of Art, and American University. She currently teaches at the New York Studio School of Painting, Drawing and Sculpture.
Robb has lived and worked in London, Venice, and Rome. She now lives and teaches in New York City. Her work is represented by the Robert Steele Gallery.
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The Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Paul Rigby, a retrospective exhibition of the late Australian artist's editorial and daily news cartoons. With over 140 drawings, the exhibition will primarily focus on Rigby's depiction of New York and US themes from the years 1977 to 2000.
An extraordinarily prolific and versatile illustrator, Rigby, in a career that spanned over fifty years, tackled ordinary life, sport, bureaucracy, business, diplomacy, war, entertainment and above all, politics, where his humor and insight could be devastating. Former UK Prime Minister Edward Heath, on his way out of office, met Rigby at a function, and said mournfully: "Mr Rigby, I believe you have killed me."
Born in Melbourne in 1924, Rigby began drawing editorial cartoons for the Daily News in Perth, Australia, and later the UK's Sun and News of the World, as well as Australia's The Daily News (WA) and Telegraph and Mirror (NSW). When Rupert Murdoch acquired the New York Post in 1977, Rigby moved to that paper, remaining in the US until his semi-retirement in 2003.
Rigby was recognized and honored in many countries for his cartooning efforts with numerous awards and citations, including five Cartoonist of the Year Walkley Awards in Australia and four New York Press Club Page One Awards. He was also commended and awarded by the US Marine Corp, New York Fire Department and New York Police Department. A Member of the Order of Australia, he was also a Knight Commander Order of St. Johns, Knights of Malta.
An author and co-author of many books on politics, travel and sport, his cartoons, sketches, paintings, murals and prints have been shown worldwide. Rigby: A Celebration will be a major part during the G'Day USA and Australia Day festivities, the annual January promotion of the very best of Australia in the United States.
SEVEN AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS WORKING BEYOND AUSTRALIA'S BORDERS
December 11 2007 - January 12 2008
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Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of "The Roving Eye: Seven Australian Artists Working Beyond Australia's Borders". With a concurrent exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London, and in association with Advance, a New York-based organization that serves as a touchstone for Australian professionals living and working overseas, "The Roving Eye" is the fourth annual exhibition presenting the work and experiences of Australian artists living abroad.
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She's been called the "Desert Monet," compared to Matisse and Renoir; a painter of "mythic proportions" and, in her lifetime "a one-woman industry." From the time Emily Kame Kngwarreye painted her first canvas for "A Summer Project 1988–89: Utopia Women's Painting" at the Ervin Gallery in Sydney, her work received widespread acclaim and was quickly recognized as groundbreaking and original, traversing the lines between traditional Aboriginal art and pure abstraction.
She was born around 1910 in Alhalkere, or Utopia Station and in a time when most Aboriginal women were employed as domestics worked as a ranch stock hand, an early display of the strength and independence that would be the hallmarks of her painting. A village Elder and senior member of the Utopia Women's Batik Project of 1978 that toured in exhibitions in Australia and abroad, Emily painted from 1988 until her death in 1996.
In that brief period her artistic output was phenomenal, thousands of paintings with a stylistic range and force that thrust her — and, as a result, contemporary Australian Aboriginal art — into the international art arena. She remains the most lauded painter of the Utopia art movement and one of the best-known desert artists; she painted with an undiminished energy that belied her years: "no one could stop her" it was said, and she was still at it two weeks before her death.
Although she said that discussion about her work was "other people's business,"dismissing such inquiries, Emily did admit once: "Whole lot, that's the whole lot. Awelye (my Dreamings, or women's ceremonies performed to care for 'country'), arlatyeye (pencil yam), arkerrthe (mountain devil lizard), ntange (grass seed), Tingu (a Dreamtime pup), ankerre (emu), intekwe (a favorite food of emus; a small plant), atnwerle (green bean), and kame (yam seed). That's what I paint; the whole lot."
Emily Kame Kngwarreye was awarded the Australian Artists' Creative Fellowship in 1992, and by the mid 1990's large collections of her paintings were acquired for permanent display in public galleries, and retrospective exhibitions were mounted at the Art Galleries of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. Her paintings have been showcased in many exhibitions world wide including the Venice Biennale, and two major exhibitions are scheduled for 2008 in Japan: at the National Museum of Art in Osaka, and the National Art Centre in Tokyo.
Finally, it was an epic painting by Emily Kame Kngwarreye entitled Earth's Creation that smashed all previous records for indigenous art when it sold for $1,056,000 (AUS) at auction in Sydney in May of 2007.
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Clearly, The Dreaming is many things in one: among them, a kind of narrative of things that once happened; a kind of charter of things that still happen; and a kind of logos or principle of order transcending everything significant for (man).
— Prof. Brian Ackerman,The Dreaming, an Australian World View
We live in strange times. Of course, the case can be made that the collective "we" have always lived in strange times, but these days do indeed seem stranger than most. The glut of information is faster, ever-faster; the stakes are higher, the consequences greater. There's the sense that we have stumbled yet again upon the crossroads of Chaos and Salvation - except that the Universe really means it this time and the choices we make will have repercussions for decades and generations to come, impacting our environment and the planet, let alone issues like our own domestic politics.
The indivisible and enduring relationship of Indigenous people with their lands - to which they often refer in terms of the land owning them, rather than the other way around - go back some sixty thousand years. The Dreamtime is more than just an explanation of how those lands (and all that exists upon them) were created by the Ancestral Beings. It was the start of the Dreamings, the continuing spiritual and cultural processes whereby Indigenous people understand and express their origins and identities, and their connections with the Spiritual Beings, in art and rituals in which millennia disappear and the past is now.
— Di Yerbury, from Dream Time to Machine Time
It seems appropriate then, in this sliver of time, to have a visual rumination of sorts (when the going gets tough, the tough look at art?) — a Chautauqua, if you will — to see if we can even begin to discern what the Zeitgeist is wearing of a summer's evening in this season of Surge and transition. Chautauquas, of course, were the "traveling tent-shows that used to move across America...to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer," as Robert Persig put it years ago. What better aim for an exhibition, a look at the process which questions, then searches for answers which maybe - just maybe - can help us all find common ground?
What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.
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Utopia's modern-day art movement started in 1977 when a women's batik-making fabric workshop evolved. By 1988, the Utopia Women's Batik Group had grown to more than 80 members and has become a well-established group. Fabric as a contemporary art medium was difficult to promote, especially in relation to Papunya's well-established painting movement. The women of Utopia began painting on canvas by translating their batik images into acrylics. Artists such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, whose batiks had been noticed for their unfettered free imagery, produced work that was instantly exciting. Demand for the paintings, Emily's in particular, grew steadily. Utopia men's painting is also strong and notable for a more formal quality based on ceremonial design.
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This exhibition features Richard Ballard's new large-scale watercolors continuing his Cloud Series, as well as several paintings from the Pylon Series. The juxtaposition exemplifies what has been described as the "lines and light" aspect of his work. The Pylons, close observations of those ubiquitous structures (think Eiffel Tower, or radio towers across the landscape) anchor the exhibition in more ways than one. The deep, angular lines — jet black with shades of blurry dark grey, sometimes with actual rust painted and rubbed into the surface, all against white grounds — become, in their way, angular clouds: these pylons, in their Gothic way, soar lightly to the heavens.
And it's the heavens themselves that comprise the rest of the work: very large watercolors of the skies and clouds in all their permutations: mist and menace, vapor and sunlight. A sense of mystery and suspense (no puns here) and technique, as well, co-exist: these are paintings whose inherent tension are about the tension of being.
Tom Breidenbach, in ArtForum, has written:
Ballard seems particularly concerned with the moment in which an object in a certain light can hover in a blur of perceptual uncertainty that almost allows it to disintegrate or to become something else … Somehow we are able to peer into Ballard's paint as we might the sky itself. Among clouds, fields, forests, and shores, the light Ballard reflects seems born of the enigma of mere presence. And Again: While Ballard speaks of "the control of watercolor over the surface of paper" as "mysterious," it's a mystery he negotiates with bravura.
Born in Liverpool, Ballard has lived and worked in Paris for the last 20 years, having shown throughout Europe, Australia and the US, and his work is included in numerous collections around the world. Recent awards include First Place in the Royal Watercolour Society's 21st Century Watercolor competition (the Royal Watercolour Society being the first and oldest watercolor association in the world).
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On view in the Project Room is Timothy Paul Myers's newest installation, One Million Dollars, as well as his earlier work OneMillion Hand-Drawn X's. In both installations, Myers explores two themes that have long been of interest to him, scale and repetition.
Of One Million Hand-Drawn X's says Myers: "Saturated with the often referred to but rarely experienced quantity "one million", I set out to create my own firsthand understanding of this numerical concept. Nine hours a day, seven days a week for six weeks, this 400-hour journey gave me not only a straightforward visual awareness of a million, but a truly physical appreciation of its size and magnitude. …The work began with a single hand-drawn X, and grew to fill 100 pages with 10,000 X's on each. The resulting one-million Xs fill a 4 x 25-foot space and invite the viewer to consider the power and simple beauty of repetition. … Each X is totally original and was executed with the energy present in the very moment of its creation. Thus, from what appear to be perfectly uniform lines of X's comes the erratic and emotional tale of my journey to a million."
The One Million Dollars series was created using a 1940's Royal typewriter where the vagaries of the machine added its own uncontrolled voice to the work as the piece developed in contrast to Myer's controlled discipline: the wear of the ribbon, the variations in pressure, the slight changes in margins — all standing out against the simple repetition of the stroke, the depression of a single key.
In exploring a concept often referred to but rarely experienced, Myers produces work of surprising stillness and beauty, where the artist's hand gives unexpected warmth to what in other hands might have been cold experience.
Timothy Paul Myers was born in Australia and moved to the United States in 1992. He studied at The Art Students League of New York. Recent works reflect an interest in the physicality and actuality of common concepts.
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Sakura, the Japanese word for cherry blossoms (and an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of life), reflects Andrew Stahl's continuing response to his travels and residencies in the Far East. "These paintings are attempts to describe the intense beauty of the appearance of the world in its labyrinthine confusion," says Stahl, "deepened by the speed of contemporary travel and the cross cultural meltdown that occurs… and to recognize all the contradictions and problems that arise in trying to use travel as a source."
How is it possible to look at exoticism and romanticism without being naive? How is it possible to include the appearance of a face or body in a painting? How is it possible not to stereotype? How important is it to take the risks of treading close to dangerous boundaries? How is it possible to make expressive and powerful art? How is it possible to make forward-looking art that deals with the future and acknowledges the contemporary issues in painting: How abstract or how figurative? How clever how dumb? How confident how shy? Or perhaps how absent / how present / how dense? How beautiful how rough? How playful / how critical, how big / how small / and how mad can paintings be?
As Stuart Morgan wrote:
A feeling of alienation informs Andrew Stahl`s paintings, and also a sense of distortion. This may be the result of distance, real or metaphorical: either that foreignness experienced in places where language, religion and custom are unfamiliar or a private perception of the strangeness of the body and what it means to inhabit it (Stahl hints that the two can be equated). The pretext of these works is travel: the feelings of being lifted like a child and transported effortlessly, with all the resulting distortions. For as space and time conflate, scale becomes meaningless, perception can no longer be trusted and understanding of others diminishes to the point of near incomprehension. In foreign parts, ordinary behaviour and customs have other meanings; even eye- contact seems to serve a different purpose. Adrift in a world of lost connections, the viewer is confronted by large things and small things. Concentrating on either is a mistake. So is trying to understand. For as paintings become notepads, the important and the irrelevant are jumbled … the odalisques demand attention, but of a different type: submission to a state beyond the quotidian.
Andrew Stahl has exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. He has received numerous awards, residencies and scholarships including the Prix de Rome and the Wingate Scholarship. Following a British Council funded residency at Chiangmai University, he had solo shows at Chiangmai Museum (2001), Silpakorn University and 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok (2003–04). Other recent solo shows were at Flowers East Gallery, London and Fenderesky Gallery, Belfast. His work is represented in several major public Collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Arts Council England, the British Council and the British Museum. He is currently the Head of Undergraduate Painting at the Slade School in London.
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The monochrome and bi-chrome paintings in Serisier's current exhibition could be described as slow accretions as they have been built up through constant adjustment for literally years until the appropriate relationship between density of colour and surface viscosity has been achieved.
Serisier's methodology is accretive; by additive means of the gradual tactile attunement of materially infused paint. He demonstrates an abiding involvement with its most fundamental nature; its range; its sometimes viscously resistant, sometimes fluid, dense, liquid and transparent states, its applications a matter of gradual, observant transformation.
Serisier has devoted himself to the exploration of the poetics of the tangible, in the process realizing works of exceptional concentration both tangible and intangible.
— William Wright, Light into Matter
This exhibition continues Serisier's investigation of light and colour as it is synthesized into matter. Near monochrome yellow, reminiscent of emergent morning light, is coupled with nocturnal black. Dense complex greys interact with undulating surfaces pursuing a dialogue between the viscosity of substance, surface tension and colour. The paintings are presented in abutted triptychs and spaced-sequences stressing a staged horizontal movement through time. Questions of materiality and immateriality are thus engaged through painted histories.
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Born in Essex, England, and beginning on the London docks as a boiler-maker and plater, Tribe during his long career has produced a challenging body of work which has split into two distinct and concurrent styles: the first open and soaring with a lyric humor; the second – built up from the inside out – exercises in density and weight. In all cases, impressive technique has been masked by a dramatic or playful presence. Issues of scale have always played a role as well. Tribe's work has run the gamut from the monumental to a scale that brings to mind Giacometti's matchbox sculptures: at what point does sculpture cease to be sculpture and become something else entirely?
In his new exhibition "Prayers, Angels and Spirits", Tribe once again pushes the envelope, challenging his audience to get beyond simple associations of representation, fertility object, African carving and fetish; to meet these objects head-on with a fresh eye unencumbered as much as possible by a priori experience. Here his Angels: open, reaching bands of steel reminiscent of the Hindu god Shiva; his Prayers, arced in a never-ending cycle of reaching, receiving; reaching, receiving; the Souls and Martyrs dense, muscular workings of steel whose visual weight imply the transition between spirit and form.
These are works that remind us of the endless cycle of life which we, in our "modern," antiseptic times tend — and in fact are raised — to forget: we are born; we die; a messy cycle of death and regeneration, and in the end, reaffirmation. As G.K. Chesterton said, "all that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant, we remember that we forgot." In these sculptures, Lee Tribe challenges us to remember.
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Robert Steele Gallery presents recent work by Mali Morris in her second exhibition at the gallery. These works are from a series of small paintings made between 2005 and 2006.
Mali Morris has shown extensively for more than thirty years, most recently in London, New York, and Tokyo. She has won several awards, and is represented in many public and private collections worldwide, including Arts Council England, British Council, and the Government Art Collection. Her work has been praised by critics for its intelligence and economy, for a clarity and sensuality of color, and for an open-minded approach to the continuing possibilities of abstract painting.
She lives and works in London, England.
From the catalogue essay "The Singular and the Painterly: Mali Morris's Recent Work", by David Ryan, artist, writer and musician, author of Talking Painting:
Mali Morris's work thrives on the production of an extremely fresh image – one that is arrested from a fluid painterly process. Her paintings are concentrated, and such is their achievement of openness that they appear to elucidate a particular kind of looking, an individual relationship with the painterly 'thing'…They might contain the memory of a number of things for the viewer…but what shines through is an emotion, a feeling – a lived experience which has no specific depictive reference, but which has found its own iconic embodiment….
From the catalog essay "Mali Morris: Paintings from Four Decades" at Poussin Gallery, London 2005, by Karen Wilkin, writer and critic:
Often, the seemingly imposed swirls, coils, and dots of Morris's recent images are made by wiping out, by removing, rather than adding pigment. The process creates unpredictable modulations of color and also makes the 'hovering' centralized events read as being simultaneously within and contiguous with their surroundings, a seeming contradiction that heightens the tension of the series. Morris's comments on the process are the pragmatic responses of a serious working painter. "taking away (paint) is another way of arriving at color," she says. "I don't want it to be a perceptual conundrum, but spatially I find it really interesting… And it keeps me thinking ahead — it's construction through seeing.
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In her previous body of abstract paintings in acrylic, Sabine Friesicke established painterly grids echoing the sides of the square canvases that playfully hinted at and denied the two-dimensional nature of the pictorial supports. Those all-over paintings were produced by balancing one set of horizontal bands, painted across the width of the compositions, against another differently colored set of lines serving as intervals and — perceptually — as grounds for the darker bands. One hue was applied onto the other until an equilibrium between the lines of different color was established. The process continues with liquefied medium,of the same color and tone as the darker horizontal bands, running down the height of the canvas at narrow intervals, thereby creating irregular streaks locking each picture's grid in place.
In recent months, the artist has carried on this process of pictorial creation. But now, the tranquil horizontals have evolved into a wave-like pattern creating a different mood. From the start, Friesicke has aimed to see how much variety she can obtain in paintings of exact same size and format (64 x 64 inches) bearing similar patterns, through incremental changes in the density, width, and direction of the lines, and modulations of the tone, color and opacity — or translucency — of the paint.
The meditative quality of Friesicke's work arises from the ritualistic repetition of more or less the same gestures and chance procedures day after day, and year after year. Her process-oriented pictures, conceived in series, are about time. Thus, they evoke passage.
A pulse was already brought about in the earlier pictures by layering the paint until the right color juxtapositions were obtained, by having the vertical streaks flow over the horizontal bands, thus achieving greater density where the lines overlap, and by having exposed squares and rectangles of ground glow through the grid. In the recent paintings, the wave-like bands running across the width of the canvases suggest both greater movement and a warped surface, which the streaks running on top of the bands partly correct. While the severe grid pattern in the previous pictures was occasionally reminiscent of a cropped view of International Style architecture, one row of windows on top of the other, the mellifluous, undulating patterns in the new works find occasional parallels in certain organic forms in Frank Gehry's recent buildings, and in the squiggly lines of recent drawings and paintings by Sol Lewitt.
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Says the artist:
My paintings are labor intensive, never laborious. A physical reaction must accompany the visual stimulation of what is in front of me. Transfixed by some phenomenal color, notes are taken on scraps of paper. What I see is never just one color. I paint what I see, a myriad of particles and shadings relating to their surroundings. I can be enthralled by a color ranging from the sky to the gutter, cars going by, dresses in windows, puke in the street, food discarded, dogs and cats' eyes, other peoples' paintings, flowers and dyes, even flies; whatever catches my eye. Tools are: flayed hardware store brushes, and dental drills. The paintings are envisioned and composed of as many as 50–100 layers of paint, that are mixed and remixed on the canvas while slashing and chipping away to the canvas beneath. Starting with arabesque gestures, each layer is drawn into and scored many times. The hand held burrs echo the arabesque brushwork, old penmanship exercises, and imitation calligraphy. To complete a painting, I work out doors. My left and right hand paint simultaneously, in a gestural finish, as if knitting threads. To complete a painting can take from 2–6 months.
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Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to present the work of artists including Richard Ballard, Rachelle Cohen, Josh Garber, Cynthia Harper, Greg Johns, Martyn Jones, Marcus Kenney, David Moore, Mali Morris, and Susan Rankine
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This exhibition of 16 works by artists from Ramingining, Utopia, and Kintore in Australia's Northern Territory, reflects the traditional 'dot' paintings of Utopia and Kintore in relation to the crushed earth tones of Ramingining's ochre on paper.
Ramingining (Central Arnhem Land; Northern Territory) After being established in the early 1970s, Ramingining was the first Aboriginal community to be included in the Sidney Biennale, 1980. Located East of Darwin, the coastal region surrounding Ramingining is one of the great bark producing areas of Australia. In 1988, these artists were responsible for one of the largest and most powerful visual arts responses to Australia's Bicentennial – The Aboriginal Memorial – consisting of 200 mourning poles by 43 Ramingining artists. As with other Central Arnhem Land clans, two of the main themes in Ramingining art are those of Witij, the Great Python , and the journey of the Wawilag Sisters. Their primary creative entity is Garrtjambal, the Red Kangaroo that travels overland to link the land-owning groups in the region together. Ramingining is often referred to as Bula'bula, which translates as the voice of the kangaroo in its journey to Ramingining. By crushing natural ochres from the earth into pigments, Ramingining artists combine these earth tones with acrylic on paper. This style of artwork, with its strongly defined figurative images against a unifying crosshatched design, has led Ramingining paintings to becoming both extremely distinctive and widely acclaimed.
Utopia (Northern Territory) Utopia's modern-day art movement started in 1977 when a women's batik-making fabric workshop evolved. By 1988, the Utopia Women's Batik Group had grown to more than 80 members and has become a well-established group. Fabric as a contemporary art medium was difficult to promote, especially in relation to Papunya's well-established painting movement. The women of Utopia began painting on canvas by translating their batik images into acrylics. Artists such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, whose batiks had been noticed for their unfettered free imagery, produced work that was instantly exciting. Demand for the paintings, Emily's in particular, grew steadily. Utopia men's painting is also strong and notable for a more formal quality based on ceremonial design.
Kintore (Papunya-Kintore; Northern Territory) Established in 1981, Kintore is an outstation of Papunya. In 1971, Papunya began the Western and Central Desert art movement. Papunya art remains quite formal with dotted overlays, broad painted bands and interlinking geometric squares. The people of Kintore observed the Papunya painting movement, and in 1983, began using acrylic on canvas as a preferred medium. The first works reflected traditional Aboriginal iconography, however, their style later developed through the use of various bright colors and the abandonment of definitive iconography. Rather, Kintore people began implementing representations of land or the women's ceremonial body designs. These stylistic changes differentiated their work from the Papunya painters.
SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
McCulloch, Susan. Contemporary Aboriginal Art: A Guide to the Rebirth of an Ancient Culture.Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.
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Robb was in Italy at the Villa d’Este, Tivoli. It’s a sixteenth-century summer
palace built by a cardinal, and there are water-fantasia gardens where
water trickles from the mouths of beasts and the breasts of
goddesses. It starts as a trickle and ends in torrents on the lowest
terrace. The site was closing when she saw a woman lying on a bench,
one knee raised and her arm shielding her eyes from the sun. She saw
her again as she exited and now she stood with one leg pressed against
a wall like a stork. She was wearing a black cocktail dress: on a
tourist site. Robb never saw her again. The next morning she hired a
model, bought a similar dress and reconstructed the pose, working at
the Villa. The paintings in this exhibition Women and Water were begun
at that time and worked on in Rome, Venice and New York. By placing
the women close to water the two elements result in more than the sum
of these elements. The women are in a pictorial plot and the theater
is Rome.
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"Forest Light",featuring 15 landscapes that exist in an area between abstraction, realism, and the essence of a memory, marks Cook's second solo exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery. As an expansive terrain expressed in a single view, Cook's paintings encompass a region that is true in its ability to be both recognizable and characteristic of the natural world, yet simultaneously forces the viewer to be conscious of the presence of an unexplored territory.
Possessing the ability to paint solely from visual memory, Cook creates rich, textured paintings by utilizing a palette-knife technique. This precise approach ultimately transforms the canvas into a geometric perception of depth within horizontal and vertical layers of oil paint. The visual accuracy created by Cook's memory offers a defined vision of the world by conveying an overwhelming sense of place in its "true" reality. In "Forest Light", Cook invites the viewer into a panorama of Autumnal forest scenes through such works as East Fork – Color #1 and Iron Door – Autumn Study #2. Through a dense growth of trees and a cascade of water, "Forest Light" brings forth the harmonious woodlands of Cook's abstract representation of a natural world, uninterrupted.
Originally from Topeka, Kansas, Cook currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona. He received his BFA at Emporia State University (1969, 1970), and his MFA at Wichita State University (1972). He has exhibited in over 37 solo and 80 group exhibitions nationwide. Cook's work is also included in numerous private, public, and institutional collections around the world.
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Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to present the first New York City solo exhibition of new work by Thaddeus Beal, on view from November 23 – December 31, 2005.
The 14 paintings comprising the exhibition are all abstract. They are "abstract" as an adjective in that they are distinctly non-narrative. And they are "abstract" as a verb in that they all seek to condense and represent the forces surrounding non-linear natural phenomena.
The work of Thaddeus Beal opens a doorway into an abstract world where time dissolves in a pale, distant light. As the work seeks to confront what Islam would call "the West's fear of infinity," the persistent narratives of the Newtonian world fade away. Huge patterns predominate, replicate and self adjust. Occasionally, when symmetries and dynamics interact, new energy is created. Scientists might call the place where these phenomena gather "the edge of chaos." It is a place where forces amplify each other, becoming more than the sum of their parts. Yet, from a distance, the place presents a resonant stillness, like the awesome quiet one feels before an open sky. It is just this state of mind which the artist wishes to evoke.
Things take form only to dissolve again. The work in this show is more about dissolution and reemergence than it is about specific form. Although it begins with static, intellectual forms, like Islamic patterns or mazes, these morph into more dynamic phenomena which often replicate natural forces. In this spirit, the artist is trying to capture the underlying vitality -- the dynamic evolving energy -- we instinctively sense in nature. Examples abound, from the flow of water to the flocking behavior of birds to the price of pork bellies over time. The work, then, seeks to represent in addition to trying to evoke a state of mind. Thus, without irony, this show is about the big and the small, the real and the unreal, the resolved and the unresolved. It is about flow and energy. It is also about rhythms too harmonious to be arbitrary.
As a Massachusetts-based artist, Thaddeus Beal has had an extensive exhibition record around the Boston area since 1991. Prior to his career as an artist, he initially practiced law as a criminal prosecutor before becoming a corporate attorney. He withdrew as a senior partner of a large Boston firm in order to attend art school and to fully embark on his career as an artist.
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Stella Waitzkin 1920-2003
All visual works of art are silent. But Stella Waitzkin's closed, impenetrable books impose a heavy silence upon us. Humanity's cumulative knowledge–our ceaseless effort to make sense of existence through our words–seems trapped within her sumptuous, emotional libraries. But perhaps it's merely suspended, a latent wisdom speaking to us in another voice–the voice of art.
Waitzkin began as an abstract expressionist. She studied painting with Hans Hofmann and life drawing with Willem de Kooning. In the 1960s and early 1970s, she expanded beyond painting to work first in sculpture, then performance art and film. Her early sculptures were made out of melted glass, but soon she discovered her signature medium, polyester resin.
After the sixties, her primary subject was the book. She cast old, leather-bound books as single objects and as elements of larger installations, including as free-standing shelves, small book cases, or entire "library" walls. These constructions are composed almost entirely of cast resin tomes yet, on occasion, she included actual books. Often, she inserted other cast objects within her libraries: clocks, birds, fruit, human faces.
These are beautiful art works, colorful, translucent, luminous. The artist would suspend color within the resin and was especially sensitive to the visual play of hue, light, and shadow within each sculpture and installation. In them, we realize that Waitzkin has never strayed far from her origins as an expressionist painter. Indeed, throughout her life, she continued to paint, creating intensely expressive works on paper that extended the themes and imagery of her sculpture. Stella Waitzkin's sculpted libraries and individual books are powerful art works, both spiritually and emotionally affecting. There is an over-arching aura of mystery about them; yet they assert an intense physicality. Her use of leather-bound books for her molds calls up a distant past; her cast faces resemble cameos of another era. But we feel most immediately the embodied passion of the artist's life, her deep understanding of human longing and loss, of personal desire and achievement.
Stella Waitzkin exhibited widely in Europe and America and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her works are in many public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian, the Walker Art Center, the Jewish Museum, the Everson Museum, and the Newark Museum, as well as the collections of Phillip Morris, Becton Dickinson, Dow Jones, and J.P. Morgan Chase.
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Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to announce the solo exhibition of new sculpture by Japanese artist Zero Higashida, marking his second exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery in New York City.
Born in Hiroshima in 1958, Zero Higashida came to New York in 1986, making his New York debut after three years of silence in an exhibition organized by Mr. Edward Albee. A sculptor with roots in both cultures, his work explores the strength of form and shape. For some time now, Higashida has been working on his Messaiah series. Higashida's September exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery is a continuation of this series.
According to Higashida, Messaiah is a coined word: his combination of the words message and messiah. Messaiah is his prayer for the peace and salvation of the world. Higashida's mother survived the dawn of the atomic age in Hiroshima, and his work reflects the tension between violence and passivity. Welds like scars bind steel panels into poetic constructions that contradict the weight of their materials.
Higashida's work consists of immense stainless steel wall pieces and small, intimate sculptures that allow the viewer to feel the strength and energy from his work that is free from both abstract and figurative art. Higashida's work is open to the viewer's interpretation, however the sculptor's fundamental goal of his Messaiah series is to convey a message of love and peace for the world that goes beyond the existence of art itself.
"I think that art can heal and has been healing history. People are able to link heaven and the real world by training their imagination. I would say that an artist is someone who conveys a spiritual message to the real world." — Zero Higashida, Sculpture Magazine, April 2005
Zero Higashida has had solo exhibitions in New York at Philippe Staib Gallery and Kouros Gallery, and in Tokyo at Atagoyama Gallery and the Contemporary Sculpture Center. Higashida received a Bachelors degree from Nihon University College of Art in 1984 and a Masters degree from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1986 while further attending the New York Studio School in 1988. Zero Higashida currently divides his time between New York and his home in Japan.
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Robert Steele Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of paintings by Australian artist Fred Cress. "Suits" marks Cress' second solo exhibition at Robert Steele Gallery in New York City.
Born in India in 1938, Fred Cress attended art school at the Birmingham College of Art from 1954-1959. After undergoing a rigorous art program that stressed the traditional aspects of drawing and composition, Cress migrated to Australia as an art teacher where he later became one of the country's most influential abstract painters for more than two decades.
By the 1980s, Cress made a radical shift from abstraction to figurative work through an inner desire to create representational images. From this, Cress began to depict the emotions that inherently coincide with the human condition. These allegorical, tragicomic scenes encompass the images that are seen in his work today.
"Suits," lies within this same context, in which the viewer is forced to come to terms with the greed, dependence, and lust for power that each painting emits. Cress' "Suits" not only reflects the ambition and affluence associated with corporate culture, but also the humiliation and despair that accompany this social ladder.
"Business is widely considered to be the current religion of our society. With the promise of wealth, power and influence as "the carrot," people scramble and fight to get to the top and the resultant toll on their humanity can be enormous."
- Fred Cress
Fred Cress has exhibited in over 50 solo and 80 group exhibitions since 1965. Collections include the National Gallery of Australia, Australian State Galleries, as well as private and corporate collections in Australia, England, France, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, New Zealand and the U.S.
The following publications about the artist are also available:
"Fred Cress Stages" by Alan Krell
"Fred Cress" by Gavin Fry
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Paul Furfaro's Sequential Reductions involves India Ink drawings on Rag Paper, a twelve year endeavor which started with an examination of seashells. Says Furfaro, "This work represents an ongoing exploration within a very specific realm of highly reductive drawing. What began as an interest in seashells has evolved into an investigation of the intimate passages within the shell, their relationship to each other, and a fascination regarding the possibilities of the medium and related working processes." Furfaro received a BFA from SUNY Purchase in 1979 and an MFA in sculpture from Parson's School of Design in 1984. In addition to remaining deeply committed to the studio discipline, he has been an art teacher in the Bronxville School District since 1988. His work has appeared in solo exhibitions at Concordia College and the Rosemont Gallery at Rosemont College. A selection of Furfaro's sculptures and drawings are in the permanent collection of the Neuberger Museum at SUNY Purchase, Purchase, NY and in the private collection of Mr. Roy Neuberger, as well as many other private collections.
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Betsy Cain NUANCE: shades of difference ( Group Show) Indigo Sky Community Gallery 915 Waters Avenue Savannah, GA 31401, USA Exhibition runs Wednesday, November 4 - Friday, Dec 4 Opening Reception: Saturday, November 14, 6-8pm Panel Discussion: Saturday, December 5, 3-5-pm
Tues - Sat, 11am - 6pm | 212.243.0165 | 511 West 25th Street, New York, NY 10001
