Olive Ayhens

Olive Ayhens has a show at Bookstein Projects on the Upper East Side, through December 20, 2019. For years I have exulted in her urban observations--funny details the metallic paint on the subway, the bikers flattening behind the bridge are two examples here. Gallery Link

This painter's work holds way more power in person than in these photos.  There is no lack of ambition in translating the density of an urban environment, either. 

She shows oil paintings and watercolors. Seen IRL, the illusion of glass plated walls is powerful.

Her watercolors of New York date back to 1996, when she first moved to the city.

She does what she wants, and 

achieves a fascinating duality in space bifurcated by horizon lines. Here, a giant pre-camel perches near  the bridge.

Another rich, dense bifurcation.

I've been thinking about painting a lot lately, what it does, how it relates, its role in a world gone digital. I am so clear on what it used to do: the instantaneous communication of ideas, visual literacy through material application, and the conflation of history and presence. But do people still get that from painting?  I don't know.

But with paintings like these, or many others--its hard to imagine a greater pleasure (beyond painting, reading, traveling, etc.) than following someone's work through time (as I have with Ayhen). This makes for a slow process, life lived analogue, in which change is incremental. Painting becomes a human landscape, recording time in embodied actions. In this painting Ayhens exposes the original surface, diluted with turps creating fissures in the paint, to the hairy beasty forms. Whether or not it's a great move time will reveal, but it's interesting to note her shift in thought through the visual decision.

While observation does not make painting overtly interactive, for this viewer it remains a profound experience to rebuild the world, mark by mark, through another's inflection. This provides a proximity as intimate as conversation.