Fresh as Form on Curating Contemporary

 I am happy to share a group show I am a part of on Curating Contemporary.  It is a wonderful website run by Brian Edmonds which hosts online exhibitions each month.  Even though it is a virtual show, it provides the opportunity to see works in dialogue that otherwise might not have been possible.  Our show consists of six artists from thousands of miles apart.

Melanie Parke  (Michigan)

Derrick Quevedo (Baltimore)

Virva Hinnemo  (New York)

Lauren Garvey (Philadelphia)

Judith Farr (Spain)

The idea hatched when talking to Derrick and Lauren about the community of painters we have had great discussions with and influence from, all through online communication (email, facebook etc.)  How amazing it is that people living so physically far apart can have many similar threads in their paintings and the way they approach their work.  So it seemed fitting to have an online exhibition highlighting this.  Here is the essay the three of us wrote collaboratively:

"Fresh as Form brings together painters who are united in their approach to form. To them, it is not something forewarned, to be considered and worked around. There are no rules or compositional guidelines that must be adhered to. 

Instead, form is in constant flux, being extinguished and renewed as the painting develops. Form is sought out like a rare pearl, wading through muddled terrain, shoveling paint across the surface, uncovering old marks and redefining them anew. 

Like some sort of painter's code; brush lines carve out new contours, positive space becomes negative space, blue lines become an ocean in the distance and then settle back into their pictorial space once more. 

Change is welcome and necessary in the pursuit of forms that satisfy the painter’s own hand, mind and the painting itself. Perhaps form is not finite, but as fresh as the moment of the gaze...”

Then selected artists were invited to choose three works that they felt best represented this statement in their work.  And so the show came together and in quite a beautiful way (if I do say so myself).