Abstract
Studio Visit brings together a selection of new works by six notable painters working throughout the United States. Ranging from hard-edged to densely layered compositions, this exhibition showcases each artist’s unique approach to abstraction. Intimate 6 x 8 inch oil paintings share space with boldly colored, large-scale canvases, some of which span eight feet.
Thomas Berding’s (East Lansing, Michigan) information-rich paintings live in a perpetual state “between construction and deconstruction, representation and abstraction, addition and deletion”. There’s a spatial complexity to Berding’s paintings in which his raucous assembly of overlapping shapes, bands, shards, and ambiguous detritus seems to recede into infinity.
Joanne Freeman (New York, New York) captures lighthearted gestures in an assortment of hard-edged compositions. Within Freeman’s bold shapes are colors ranging from vivid-blues to saturated reds. The artist sets up a beautiful tension in which these shapes are arranged in close proximity, but do not touch. In several of her new paintings the weight of the larger forms balances the delicateness of the seemingly malleable, slender, red-orange forms.
Alfredo Gisholt’s (Boston, Massachusetts) oil paintings are populated with eccentric forms captured through spirited, gestural brushstrokes. Gisholt’s compositions are both humorous and ominous in the same instance. A mélange of fractured shapes, curvy lines, and other enigmatic devises share space and invite the viewer to invent narratives while also observing the materiality of paint.
Rachel Hellmann’s (Terre Haute, Indiana) shaped compositions explore the intersection of painting and sculpture while offering an interplay of geometry, light, and color. Crafted from poplar wood, Hellman’s forms are meticulously planed, cut, pieced together, glued, clamped, and sanded. The artist’s painted bands depict color relationships that range from monochromatic to vividly bold; the arrangement of the elements is in direct response to the unique qualities of each sculpted form.
In Suzanne Laura Kammin’s (Newark, New Jersey) abstract oil paintings, hard-edged forms unite with transparent gestural brushwork. In compositions that bring to mind the crisp, spray-painted marks of certain types of graffiti, the artist has employed a dynamic palette ranging from vibrant reds and saturated yellows to bold greens. Kammin states that she contrasts “smooth, minimal shapes of pure color against distressed and improvisatory passages to create a sense of expansiveness, magic, and mystery.”
At first glance, Matt Phillips’ (New York, New York) paintings may appear to be rooted solely in rigid geometric abstraction, but within each defined shape are complex and rich passages achieved through delicate brushwork. Phillips’ fractured forms seem to be in a state of fluctuation, as if one is looking at shifting patterns and light through a kaleidoscope.