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.

Scenes from Miami: UNTITLED, Miami Projects, Art Miami

Ian Hughes at Jaeckel, UNTITLED

Hughes' large, wormy gesture/pours, edited by color surround. Easy pop paintings, open and inviting.

Joshua Marsh at Jeff Bailey--a knockout--small easel-size painting

Joshua Marsh--gorgeous color, brush handling. These are the best paintings yet.

Valery Blass at Parisian Laundry, with Rick Leong sculpture

Amy Feldman, Rachel Beach, Justin Adlan at Blackston

Dominique Labauvie at Bleu Acier (French term for hot steel)

Labauvie-line drawinbg with steel. He also made the gorgeous tables.

Larissa Bates at Monya Rowe--her love of Indian miniature continues. I was sorry to not have photographed two more great UNTITLED exhibits: Franklin Evans and Eric den Breejen (at DNA, which also has a booth at Miami Project with David Baskin).

A simply knockout wall of Monique Prieto at ACME booth @ Miami Projects.

Tadaaki Kuwayama, two paintings from 1965: fresh as a daisy

David Humphrey at Fredricks Freiser, 2012 - a beauty

At Michael Goedhius' booth, Art Miami-You Si, The Wave In The Outer Space, 2009 (70 x 49, ink on paper)

Also at Goedhius, Yao Jwi-Chung, Love Me Little, Love Me Long, 2011

Xhang Zhaouhui, Mountain and Water Series, 2011, 69 x 38.5 - gorgeous brushwork

A perfect way to end the evening: a Matisse-like Wesselman at Haunch of Venison.
 

Words and Images: Three Links

If you are in Miami, I'll see you at the Pulse and Miami Project art fairs! Here are three links to enjoy this week:

http://www.joanwickersham.com/www.joanwickersham.com/Welcome.html
Joan Wickersham's new book: The News From Spain.
Her Suicide Index was one of the best books I've ever read--ever.

http://www.vidaweb.org/human-lives-a-conversation-between-jane-hirshfield-and-leslie-mcgrath
Jane Hirschfield, poet. Interview from one year ago with Leslie McGrath.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oSe3sB1uZI&feature=BFa&list=UUCknW9jOTW8w0rSBe-PdM1w
The Seven Seas, my exhibition at Hollywood Art & Culture Center: audio by George Fishman of QRartguide and video by Scott Draft of LoveScottDraft.