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!

A Fine Arrangement Exhibition @ PAFA Museum

Below are some images from the A Fine Arrangement exhibition currently on view at PAFA.  Curated by Jan Baltzell and Michael Gallagher, it is a large show with a great variety of paintings in scale, time period, style and imagery, highlighting the versatility of the genre.  I keep going back to the show and finding new things.  It's been a really engaging show for me and I love that it is up for a few months (opened in October, ends April 12th)

There is a free, public opening on Tuesday, January 27th from 4:30 - 6:30 and a panel discussion Wednesday March 4th from 5:30 - 7:30.  

Jimmy Bellew, Palette, 2012

left: Laura Adams, Jade Bracelet, 2013(?),  right: George Cope, Spectacles, 1900 

Jane Piper, Still Life with Two Compotes, 1968

Raymond Saunders, La Chambre, 1961

left: my painting Black Curtain, 2014, right: Richard Diebenkorn Interior with Doorway, 1961 (one of my favorite paintings ever, looked at it all the time while in school)

Humbert Howard, The Yellow Cup, 1949-50

Unidentified Artist, Still Life with Pumpkin, 19th Century

Jane Wilson, Some of Willa's Things, 1971 (a favorite of my from PAFA's collection, almost always in the vault) 

Claire Kincade, At the Foot of the Table, 2013

Michael Rossman, Leaves, 1969

left: Horace Pippin, The Warped Table, 1940, right: my painting Pink Flower with Clock, 2014

Michael Ciervo, Untitled(Power, Corruption, Lies/Fantin-Latour), 2008 (excuse the glare)

from left: Ken Kewley, Jimmy Leuders, Bill Scott

Abraham Rattner, The Round Table, 1945
 

left: Catherine Mulligan, Still Life, 2008, right: my painting Late Night Light, 2014 

Joshua Marsh, Not, 2013

Elizabeth Godshalk Burger, Still Life, 1940 

Jan Baltzell, Begonia, 1971-72

These installation shots show how big the gallery is with a lot of work to digest.  I probably only posted a quarter of the work, if that.  It continues into the stairwell gallery and back gallery as well.

  As a still life painter I always feel like there are not enough shows of good, radical still life paintings to sink my teeth into.  This is a really satisfying experience and worth a visit and a return visit for sure.

Studio Shots: October 2014

A few from my collection of cardboard snacks (sushi, a poptart, hard shell taco, behind: Al's Knee)

Finally cleaned up my space.  Some paintings in various stages of finish

Excellent catalog I bought from DC Moore's recent exhibition here

Recent painting of cake, with a sinister fork

New Painting

 2014, Oil on Panel, 50 x 48 inches

  

I finally finished this painting that has been lingering in my studio for close to a year.  It has many layers of failed paintings of this same space (my bedroom) underneath.  I think it might be one that not everyone responds to but for me it is taking on that rare, sacred, touchstone-type painting persona.  I'll have to hold on to it for a while and see what happens.  

Its a bit hard to photograph, a lot of subtle change in the dark values, comes through a bit better in the detail shots.  

On Openings

Opening with Hipsters, 2014, Oil on Panel

Above is a recent painting I made.  It came from deep in my subconscious brain.  I seriously started the painting with four pink balls and before I knew it they became heads and this was in front of me.  I have no clue who the people are except that the short head in the front is mine.  It came after a particularly awkward night of openings that prompted me to write this post -- an issue I have been thinking about for a long time: openings.

I always set out going to openings with such optimism.  From a month's distance they seem like the perfect social gathering -- people interested in the same things, looking at artwork over a glass of wine.  And then I enter the show and usually pretty immediately things start to go awry.

It's a type of awriness (should be a word) that is so subtle.  I mingle with a first person who its great to see but I'm simultaneously aware that I'm very sober and fairly sweaty from the walk.  The more I start thinking about how sweaty I am in the lights of the gallery, the more my hands feel like foreign objects attached to my arms that are growing quickly and need to be folded awkwardly over my chest to be contained.  I excuse myself to get a glass of wine.  As I am pouring, I am rewinding the scene that just occurred so spontaneously and still deciding whether my enthusiasm was way too excited over the person's comment when someone else usually pulls up.  We talk, I inevitably do something weird. 

The thing is: there are two types of opening goers.  There are those who want to really engage and have a great conversation for a long time broaching all subjects and those who want to bop around and say hi and take in the show quick and easy.  Both philosophies are great.  It turns out I am neither of these.  What I am is the opposite of whatever the person I am talking to is.  I don't mean to be but I must not pick up social cues well or something, every conversation I either feel like I need to pivot and run or am grabbing the person on the shoulder trying to scream a stupid story into their ear.  

The finale comes when, after so many of these start to accumulate, I eventually am talking to someone and the voice in my head is just replaying the 'aubrey's awkward highlight reel', the painfully weird and overly enthused things I have spewed at various points in the night and I can no longer take it.  Which is when I dash out to the nearest bar (hopefully I am with a friend or Alex) and drink away the socially inept artist that I am and wait four weeks to do it again next month.

New Stufffff

Night Noodles, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 7.5 x 9

Vase and Clock, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 11.5 x 14

Cassis Breeze, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 12 x 10

No title yet, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 12 x 10

No title yet, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 24 x 24

No title yet, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 16 x 16

Night Cart, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 24 x 24

Wilty Ranuculus, 2014, Oil on Masonite, 14 x 11

I've been making a lot of stuff.  Above are a couple. 

I've been pretty productive over the summer, probably made about 30 paintings, plus or minus, and feel like I need to look at what I've been doing.

The main things: I have been working with the figure from invention which has created a lot of weird and bad stuff but also been very, very satisfying.  

I have been pushing myself consciously away from so much white and 'atmospheric fog' as I call it.  Trying to establish different sense of space which has brought me to working with a lot of blue and black.  I can't decide if I am now relying on it in the same way as the white but I don't think so.  

Unconsciously, I have started doing a lot of scraping and wiping through to previous layers which in person has added to the surface in a way I like.

I have continued to try to make paintings I have never made before: especially in color and composition; attempting to both empty out and fill entirely in terms of comp.

I put a couple other things on my website too.  It feels good and weird to have so many new things floating around.  I'm just not sure what to make of them.  I don't feel like they completely belong to me yet, if you know what I mean?  All these strange new personalities marching around the studio.  

Between Matter and Experience Review

A review of the Between Matter and Experience exhibition, by Tom Csaszar.

An excerpt:

"Between Matter and Experience” at the University of the Arts brings together the paintings of nine artists in various stages of their careers. In these works, the materiality of paint remains potent, not so much as some revived form of affective formalism, but more as communicative observations. The paintings operate as simple statements whose narratives are enacted through the thoughtful embrace of mere moments of a life presented in the interactions of the elements within them..."

Jessie Drew-Bear Review

So...
 I wrote this thing....

It's a review for Title Magazine of the Jessie Drew-Bear show at the Woodmere Art Museum.

Rather than say anything more, here's the link.  Because I already spent a lot, lot, lot of hours finding the words for her work.  It's a more fomal type of writing than a blog that I find much harder to do.  But I enjoyed it.  Let me know what you think.  And here is a picture of a lot of poodles to sway you towards loving it, her and me:

Jessie Drew-Bear, Dog Show, 1961

Between Matter and Experience Show

Katherine Bradford

Today was a great day.  The group show Between Matter and Experience was installed.

Sarah McEneaney

Gallery curator John Thompson putting up the work (from left: Krista Profitt, Bonnie Levinthal, Me)

Lauren Garvey left, Eleanor Ray right

Betsey Batchelor

from left; Me, Sarah Gamble, Eleanor Ray

Bonnie Levinthal left, Me right

This show initially began as a conversation at my aunt's (Bonnie Levinthal) house.  A few painters were sitting around discussing painting (what's new haha), and what we feel is really important in painting to us.  It was just a big idea for a long time that morphed from one place to the next, as a sort of platform to get through the cold winter months, a reason to get together and talk.  

But eventually we decided to get organized and put something up that we could see in-person, together, and see what that sparked.  From there everything went really quickly and now the show is opening June 5th, from 3-5pm at the President's Gallery, Hamilton Hall, University of the Arts, Philadelphia.  

It continues through July 3rd.

Here is the statement:

This exhibition represents the work of nine contemporary painters. While the visual vocabularies are diverse, there exists a shared humanist perspective that suggests the way it feels to move through the world without feigned knowing or emotional distance, expressing an openness to sensation of both paint and subject.

The work reflects attention to the overlooked, the intimate, the awkward and imperfect, appreciates mystery, and possesses a curiosity for things hidden. In all the work, there is a suggestion of the existence of something not entirely present.

This "between" state takes the form of the tension between abstraction and representation, between image and the physical form of the paint, and where a quality is present that resists naming.

At the heart of this view, is the idea that this attention to humanness inspires a range of voices.

This show grew from a small, casual dialogue between a few of the painters in this show into a larger discussion on painting. The original conversations traced the threads of continuity that weave through the work of these artists from different cities and generations.

Partly facilitated by the personal relationships that connect them, or maybe as a result of seeing each other's work, but most likely due to something much more far-reaching and complex, these painters share an attitude on painting that manifests in quite different visual expressions. The decision for this particular grouping is to draw attention to how diverse that expression can be.

Participating Artists:

Betsey Batchelor

Katherine Bradford

Sarah Gamble

Lauren Garvey

Aubrey Levinthal

Bonnie Levinthal

Sarah McEneaney

Krista Profitt

Eleanor Ray

Studio Upgrades

Having a bit more time this summer to commit to the studio, I have taken on a few very needed and necessary projects.  I just didn't feel like I could give up any hours to diy ideas which can stretch into much more complex things with me sometimes.  Luckily, these two were really easy and I am really happy to have put in the time.

The first is shelves for viewing paintings.  I needed a clean space to look at both finished and unfinished paintings.  I also needed it to be eye level because looking down at a painting on the floor is very different than when it is at this height.

It was weirdly easy -- using leftover moulding from frames that had a lip, I painted the wall and shelves white.  Then I used brackets to secure them in place .

The second project was creating storage racks for my paintings.  They had been leaning against each other in a pile which gave me such an uneasy feeling every time I looked at it.  I had researched buying one of these at one point and it was oddly expensive (as art supplies have to be for some reason).  

But then recently I came across a genius idea of someone else's here.

I made it one step cheaper actually than his method by deleting the pegboard step.  I had this shelving unit from Ikea that already had holes in the shelves.  So I bought another for $35 and using dowels that I cut to length, I divided up the space.  So far both projects are proving totally worth the minimal effort and investment.