Chelsea, the Beautiful

Trenton Doyle Hancock at James Cohan: a textural relative of the stylized forms in
Dana Schutz's show at Petzel earlier this year

Hancock, tactile and wild

Surfaces are dense and surprising--hard to know what's on top and beneath. They are a pleasure to behold.

A fine blob on a scrambled pink and yellow ground.

Small kitty painting by Hancock in Cohan's front room.

Keltie Ferris - a handsome show at Mitchell, Inness & Nash
This is featured on many blogs, including those linked here, lower right.

Soft, sprayed color with a small, digitized mark on top.

Barnaby Furnas at Marianne Boesky:  this room looked fantastic.

Jonah and the Whale--see Jennifer Wynne Reeves below for another version of the Biblical tale.
Furnas' palette is so icy and cold, perfect for winter ocean tales.

Drawings by Furnas on a wood panel wall. Straightforward like the paintings, strange mix of Leger and David Bates among others.

David Humphrey, this painting in Fredrick and Freiser's back room.
Like Sue Williams in a way--and then not.

David Brody just reviewed the show for Artcritical.com

Color is skewed on my iPhone but I did love this painting, particularly the caput mortum with brilliant blue and yellow.

Tree language.

Stephan Mueller at Lennon, Weinberg

A most gorgeous example of Mueller, though the crimson surround is compromised by iPhone.
Makes me think of the Met's Matisse armchair painting center of three where the model's arm becomes part of the chair, framing her body.

Stephan Mueller

Jennifer Wynne Reeves at Stux, group show: another Jonah story on coated paper, with a surprising array of textures.
Check her page on FB for better images--these again, are iPhone.

Jennifer Wynne Reeves: another pictorial hybridizer.
These framed works are hard to capture straight on but they are wonderful paintings!

Whale threatening to devour one of Reeve's emblematic paint-figures, with which she has worked for many years.
Reeves is a Guggenheim Fellow this year.

Annie Attridge at Asya Geisberg Gallery

This joyous porcelain work summoned memories of See's Candy Easter Eggs
...with picture windows revealing narratives of a sugar animal kingdom

An adult version of same replete with wood paneling.
The artist also showed drawings and prints of wood grain and the sculpture.

Last gallery of the day: Gary Snyder, featuring the wall hangings of Al Loving.

This museum-quality show will be extended yet again, which is great news for everyone. I first saw Al Loving's work at David Reed's studio, in an exhibition of work from the 1970s after the High Times, Hard Times show.

After this, headed uptown to the Met to see Matisse, In Search of True Painting. What a cap to a splendid day! Paintings paired, sometimes tripled, with repeat motifs through which he "searches for true painting." Through serial photographs and the doubling of works, one encounters the tremendous dedication and drive behind what we perceive as light and simple compositions. Make it look easy?
Matisse Press Release
 

Quick Trip to Orchard Street

Very satisfying drawings by Tom Fairs at Kerry Schuss, Orchard St. This show of small drawings, made in summer 2004, is comprised of jagged, diamond-like marks massed into various configurations of a garden-like space.

Another Tom Fairs drawing. They are small, perhaps 16 x 12.

Shari Mendelson's Modern Times at Lesley Heller Workspace: Elisabeth Kley to left, Keiko Naharashi on right wall. Naharashi made her own shelf; both artists work with flat drawing and dimensional vessels.

Elisabeth Kley's joyous melding of color and form

Another view of Modern Times: Barry Bartlett's elegant, gold leafed vessel form at center, Christy Rupp's furred and felt oil cans left, Shari Mendehlson's light yet substantial animals and vessels rear and Jim Dingilian's smoke painted bottles at right.

Shari Mendelson

Christy Rupp, "5 Gallon," 2009/10, handfelt, 28 x 10 x 13

Arlene Shechet's Buddha in the world (not the title)

Shari Mendelson, Hedgehog Bottle, 2012, plastic bottle plastic, tea bags, hot glue and polymer paint, 6 x 5 x 8 inches

In Heller's front room: Ken Buhler's Oriental Dollar Bird, acrylic on canvas, 32 x 84 inches
Pours make bloom and rubber stamps harden the edges. This show is inspired by the names and habitats of birds.

Did not photograph, but thoroughly enjoyed, Marshall N. Price's FROM LIFE at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, with rollicking paintings from observation featuring Gideon Bok, Susanna Coffey, Lois Dodd, Rackstraw Downes, Cindy Tower and others, plus, Louisa Matthiasdottir pastels in the back room.
Steven Harvey Fine Arts link

Studio Visits: Alison Berry, Julian Hatton

Alison Berry: most recent painting. She has been omitting some of the intensive detail of her previous work
and "letting color and shape take over."

She invents her topographies, creating a cartography of imagination.
This painting has a beautiful color range...and look at the value structure! She is a beautiful composer.

An earlier work, that might recall some of the structural elements in Joyce Kozloff.
Yet this work would look great with artists Robert Walden, Mike Childs and Robert Landsen
(Robert Henry Fine Art (56 Bogart St., Bushwick)

http://www.roberthenrycontemporary.com/artists

A wall of Alison Berry. I love the dynamism of her rectangles.

Link to Alison Berry's website

Julian Hatton. He has been working a range of sizes, playing with paint applications and 'flat and full' forms.
In this small painting (24 x 24?) there is a fine, brushy scumble passing over a copse of trees.

The value structure of these works is built with full chroma-- so elegant.

Small "painting-drawings" Hatton has developed to limber up for larger works.

A blurry image of a wonderful painting. A transparent red splash establishes the foundation; structure is built with opaque color and form. This painting features a thrilling and truly strange deep green, yellow and blue color combination. Traversing his spaces, it comes as no surprise Hatton has a Chinese scroll near the studio. He is no stranger to the pathways therein.

Another, small "painting-drawing," around 10 x 12 as a guess for size.
My favorite 'sketch,' for its abandon and mark, in which the brush stops and pivots.

A large landscape and small drawing-painting to the left. Horribly over-exposed. It reminds me of Picasso's "Night Fishing at Antibes" at MoMA (1939) in its coloration--but there is more depth and density here, summoning Matisse, among others.

A knockout big painting--loose, free, full of energy, as if Cezanne and Marsden Hartley had collaborated.

In the studio, a sense of scale.

Link to Julian Hatton's website

Picasso, Night Fishing at Antibes, 1939, oil on canvas. Collection MoMA. 6 feet 9 inches x 11 feet 4 inches

Night Fishing at Antibes, MoMA Multimedia Audio link

Aqua and Art Asia Miami Art Fairs

Troy Richards at Thomas Robertello of Chicago at AQUA

Small, slightly crazy paintings that emphasize facture and mark

A lively trio, with a beauty on the left. Sometimes you just want to put paint down. Troy Richards has figured out a way to do so, in the unpredictable vein of painters such as Jered Sprecher.

New Orleans artist Robert Lansden at Robert Henry Contemporary at AQUA.
The gallery is located in the 56 Bogart Building, Bushwick.

Sharon Lawless viewed slightly crooked at Robert Henry Contemporary. I like her elegant collages. http://sharonlawlessart.com

ART ASIA - Mao Lizi's pour paintings in the classic Chinese po'mo' ('splashed ink') method.

Two beauties at Ethan Cohen Fine Art: Qin Feng's tondo, 78 inches diameter

Qing Fen at Ethan Cohen Fine Art at ART ASIA.

Japanese artist Noriko Kurafuji: a little like watching smoke, or light pass through trees

Na Young Lee's Chinese landscape idioms at Seoul Contemporary

Lin Li at Ethan Cohen Fine Art. Li loves Liu Xiaodong's social realism and Lucien Freud's portraits.
He paints themes of Chinese and US life (http://www.linliart.com)

Also at Cohen, Kim Il Soon.

Strange glazed fields of rocks, like other planets. I did not get the artist's name.

A beautiful painting by (Lee Seuhyang?) So elegant and simple.
Photographed the label, but not close enough to read the name. Have seen his or her work in New York before.

Li Jin, "Artist of Gourmet," at Beijing's Today Museum: ink wash painter.