Sunday Pick: Angelina Gualdoni

Opal Hours, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 52" x 48", 2013

I'm hugely enjoying these paintings by Angelina Gualdoni.  The three particular pieces here are part of a series or section of her website called 'held in place.'  That definitive title in contrast with the ethereal titles of the individual paintings like 'Without a Net to Catch the Days' creates the same great tension that the paintings have.  They seem absolutely rooted in a particular moment, a particular time of day or point of view but slip through your fingers (eyes, really) and dissolve into abstract color and line.  They are specific and deeply personal which, in turn, makes them feel universal.  That all too familiar feeling of Sunday afternoon sun slipping away...

Without a Net to Catch the Days, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 38" x 34", 2013

Glorious color relationships and compositions of space.  Looking at them makes me believe I might not have to face Monday morning tomorrow if I stay right here and keep looking for long enough.

Screens, Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 34" x 28", 2014

Pool Days are Coming

Michael Childers' portrait of David Hockney at Rising Glen, Hollywood, 1978

Only three days until spring.  Cannot wait.  Somehow in the last few years everything seems to be getting faster except winter.  The years are rolling by at an alarming rate but the winters drag on and on.  I felt the warmth of the sun yesterday and the vision of a day at the pool floated into my subconscious.  I feel like I know what it must have been like for Hockney to arrive in California with its pool and palm trees from dreary, gray London.  Warm weather, please come soon.

Interview with Rebekah Callaghan

I did an interview with Philly painter Rebekah Callaghan that was just published on Title here.  She's a great painter and a really nice person.  Plus, her answer to "What is one unshakeable truth you believe when you are in your studio and making work?"  was "snacks—bananas, almonds, dark chocolate."  So how could you not trust her thoughts on process, beauty and heroic painting?  Please click the link to check out the full interview.

Star Gazer/Ancient Light @ Trestle Projects

Press Release for show opening this Friday 3/13!...

STAR GAZER/ANCIENT LIGHT

Curated by Polly Shindler and Will Hutnick

Featuring: Ginny Casey, Lauren Collings,

Aubrey Levinthal and Jenna Ransom

March 13 -April 16, 2015

Opening reception:

Friday, March 13, 6-9pm

Trestle Projects is pleased to announce STAR GAZER/ANCIENT LIGHT, a group exhibition of painting featuring works by Ginny Casey, Lauren Collings, Aubrey Levinthal and Jenna Ransom.

This is a show for and by dreamers.  The pieces herein are dreamscapes of awareness and knowledge, scrutiny and perception.  There is a trace of reality in each piece, a glimpse of the recognizable; then it all disintegrates into the static and confusion of a dream.

Dreams sometimes come to us as déjà vu.  Aubrey Levinthal’s paintings read as delusion or implanted memories because they look so closely like our own.  Her reality mingles with ours and looks somewhat hallucinogenic in its familiarity.  Ginny Casey’s paintings are downright Lynchian.  Hat and Scarf, whose elements seem benign, quickly turns unfriendly and chilly in its mood and tone.   Two blue figures might look at us with curiosity - but more likely - stare at us as inhospitable beasts.  Collings is unflinchingly aware of her surroundings.  She makes the world appear far more interesting in its complications.  Her images are magnified to such a degree that they become auxiliary to the vehicle driving them.   Jenna Ransom’s paintings are meandering scenes bent on repetition.  The viewer can easily get lost in the continuity and shifting gray tones.  She creates a wilderness akin to a jungle, with Easter eggs hidden throughout.

Each of these artists focuses on minutia in order to show us larger scenarios at play.  This micro/macro experience asks the eyes to both squint and zone out, the mind to simultaneously investigate and unfocus.

Image Shown: Ginny Casey, Blue Figures, 24"x 24", oil on panel, 2014

Trestle Projects:  400 3rd Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215

Gallery hours: Fridays & Saturdays, 12-4 and by appointment

Thrilled to be showing with these three painters.  I really like the themes the press release gets at too.  I feel very connected to the work and ideas of this show and am looking forward to seeing it on Friday.  Please stop by if you find yourself in the area!

Sunday Pick: Nathalie Du Pasquier

I've been frequenting Nathalie Du Pasquier's website.  The crispness and specificity of looking carefully in the work is really refreshing to me.  Makes me want to paint from a big still life set up.  

Du Pasquier was born in Bordeaux in 1957 but has lived in Milan for the last 35 years.  She was a textile designer at the start of her career but fully committed to painting in 1987.  Her website is full of images of work, her studio and just a good website representative of a personal vision.  Really nice.