Material World

First stop: Swing State, curated by Jane Kim Gallery at 119 Hester (popup location)
David Shaw's Science Night, 2012, wood, paint, holographic laminate (36 x 54 x 4.25) The "chalkboard" conceit in this work and combination of expected and unexpected materials throughout the show imbued this exhibition with a visceral feeling of working in the studio.

And of course the glimmer of light...

Thomas Nozkowski, Untitled, 1976, Black metallic rayon, vinyl, glass, aquarium gravel, milk glass, foam core, 39.5 x 50

Lisa Beck's symmetrical mirror painting, "Double Burst," 2012, enamel on broken mirror mounted on painted panels, 12 x 24

Joanne Greenbaum's ceramic sculpture, front, and Lydia Dona's "Cities of Doubt," 2012, 60 x 66 inches, using oil, acrylic, metallic and sign paint on canvas.

James Hyde, Percolate, 2011, Acryylic on paper, acrylic on acetate, acrylic on wood, acrylic on inkjet print, silicone, expandable foam, on plexiglass in a glass box...a new painting technology that harkens back to Rauschenberg's combines and forward, to construction sites, dimensional prints and...

Fabian Marcaccio. "Swing State" presents unusual output by well-known artists, and this sculptural Marcaccio, greeting us at the door, certainly came as a surprise.  

Fabian Marcaccio, Child Soldier Structural Canvas #2, 2013, pigmented ink on canvas, aluminum, alkyd paint, and silicone, 48 x 36 x 30--the size of a small child.

David Humphrey's acrylic on canvas Heat Cycle, David Diao's acrylic and collaged on canvas Hammered Black and Blue, 2011, behindDonald Moffett's Untitled, Lot 010804, 2004/2011 oil and aluminum paint on linen with wood panel support with steel tacks, galvanized bucket, concrete, rebard, wood, sheet metal, rusted chains.

On to Brooklyn and Pierogi, to see Sarah Walker's new work.

Beginning with pours, and working back into them, expands her language of smaller, compartmentalized liquid areas into a new internal scale.

Inter-galactic constellations emerge, belied by bifurcated compositions that imbue "surface tension" with new definition.

Moving about the paintings, one sees letters and numbers emerging from the abstract phenomena.

Walker has experimented with gels to give her pours a rhythmic, evenly patterned quality she then paints back into.

Pattern surrounds bursts and points of focus that sometimes pierce the surface into otherworldly spaces. The punctum is both illusionistic and material--the touch of the hand is present.

Stanley Whitney's exhibition at Team, now on Grand St. in Soho, which seems to be re-emerging as a hub for galleries.

Exciting paintings--loosely brushed, with knowing  color relationships.

Counter-rhythms, overlays and shadows or strips of a related color complicate the paintings.

The eye thrills to color relationships attenuated by touch. One thinks equally about the dynamic grids of Mondrian and the carefree, brushed surfaces of late deKooning.

Ranges of warmth, moving in and through the wheel, exploiting paint's material power to evoke sun-kissed landscapes.

Down the street at Peter Freeman, Catherine Murphy! Here, a meticulous drawing of chocolates, "Half Full," 12 x 12 inches, leading us through multiple spaces across a lavish, pencil surface.

Small, wood knot painting, one of many, which sang with chromatic and proportional harmony.

Detail of the larger work below. Murphy's look, mark, look methodology reminds me of Neil Welliver and Richard Bosman's paintings, with less brio to the paint.

This results in painting that borders the line of drawing, yet they are extremely material. One is extremely aware of the hand, and the continued back-and-forth between observation and touch.

A really weird painting--so photo-real it distorts. I love the clunky shadow as a foil to the hyper-attenuated hand and forehead. The hand is quite beautiful as a construction of paint, never mind about image.

Gift box, a jade surprise.

Ink drawings by Cynthia Lin at Garis & Hahn on the Bowery, from a three-person show that just closed.

Reviewed by Susan Silas for Hyperallergic, the show focused on skin. Lin's ink drawings continue her dematerialization of image, but the liquid media painted on both sides of vellum feels new and refreshing--combining moisture and density beneath the dry surface of scabbed or scarred flesh.

Review: Finding Empathy in the Confines of the Skin

Back to Pierogi for James Esber's exhibition of new gouache drawings. "Prostrate Figure" is my favorite.

An ornate, calligraphic application of material evolves anthropomorphic perspectives of humans, in a concise version of his Sculpey works from the 1990s.

Esber

Detail--free and easy wandering in the paint.

In another part of Brooklyn at the Gallery at I-Gap: Nancy Friedemann and her large mylar paintings.

The Gallery at I-Gap is the lobby of a Richard Meier-designed building, which hosts exhibitions every four months.

Friedemann's fanciful works, informed by lace patterns and South American folklore, explore ways that colonialism insinuates itself within decorative imagery.

Ambitiously-scaled, generously painted works invite us in,

and introduce imagery with historical resonance.

Last stop Edward Thorpe, Chelsea, to view Judy Simonian's knockout solo exhibition.

Talk about materiality! Acrylic acts like oil, pats of the brush become mountains.

A series on fish was a strange and interesting side note to her usual works that combine disparate images.

Swipes of paint yield shimmering forms fleeting past.

Adding landscape space to split the perspective and take us far into the distance.

Or reinforce the surface of the canvas.

Here, it was as if landing on a foreign planet, only to enter a theatre space.

 See more here: Judith Simonian at Thorp