Color Forms, Part 2

Color Forms, Part 1
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This detail closed Part 1 so for the sake of continuity I'm opening with it here. The work is by Scott Richter, who has a tour de force show at the Elizabeth Harris Gallery in which pumped-up paintings flex their geometric muscle.

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Push Comes to Shove, 2009

Some paintings by Scott Richter, above and in installation below. I love that they don't have to be big to be strong

Info and links are at the end of the post

The painting below is second from the left in the installation above. In some instances, as here, Richter has painted in oil on wool carpet, so while his paintings are about the paint--god, are they about the paint--they've got some internal support

Scott Richter, This is Not a Landscape, 2007


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Scott Richter, Clattertrap, 2008
with corner detail below .

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As if one fabulous show at Elizabeth Harris were not enough, Carolanna Parlato has the second gallery. Form here is relative. Compared to Richter's paintings. Parlato's are flat. But look closer. Her surfaces are roiling with rills and currents. Even her titles suggest activity that's taking place just below the surface: Upwelling, Streaming, Undercurrent. Parlato is an action painter. More precisely, she's an active painter who pours and tilts as much as she brushes. There's form here, all right.

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As for the color, I'm not sure "pretty" could stand up to the muscularity of the paintings, so it's fittingly strong and sometimes acidic. I particularly like the passages where the colors flow together. Or maybe they're repelling one another? Or maybe both, which would be a fitting dynamic for the literal push/pull of Parlato's process.

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Carolanna Parlato, Hyshot, 2009, acrylic on canvas
You can get a sense of the scale below


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. Upwelling, 2010 (shown in situ above) with detail below that shows you how the surface has been built through pouring
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Chrisopher Tanner at Pavel Zoubok
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Christopher Tanner's work is an otherworldly hybrid of geometry and biomorphic form that pulls in paint, leather, mirrors, shells and other shiny materials. It's an understatement to call them dramatic; indeed, Tanner has been a Downtown performance artist among other things during his creative career. These works have a sense of Romulans-Go-To-Mardi-Gras-On-Acid. I can't say I love them, but they provoke me, and I like that.

Christopher Tanner, Sunday in the Park, 2009, mixed media assemblage
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Diane Ayott, Twice Forgiven, 2990, oil on paper, 16 x 22 inches
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At Kathryn Markel, Diane Ayott's work is more about color and pattern than color and form, but the Boston-based artist is working her circles, dots and lines with structure and dimensionality. I find her surfaces seductive, and because you have to get close to really see what's going on, viewing them becomes an intimate act..th

.ere's an intimacy

. Diane Ayott, Open Eyed, 2008, oil on panel, 12 x 12 inches
with detail, below .

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. Renee Magnanti, installation wall at "Waxed in Time" at Tenri Cultural Center
(The show, curated by Thalia Vrachopoulos, also includes Nancy Azara, Joan Giordano and Kathy Stark)
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In the grouping of small works shown above, Renee Magnanti has drawn from patterns of tiles and textiles from various cultures. The color is sublime--the yellow of a Chinese silk ceremonial robe, for instance, or the turquoise of a Tibetan ornament--but the hitch is that she's carving the surface of her paintings to create the image. Talk about color and form! In terms of process, what Magnanti's doing is not so different from lacquer work, in which layers of tree resin are built up and carved into. Magnanti is using wax, so her buildup is higher and her carving deeper..

Renee Magnanti, Auspicious, 2010, carved encaustic on panel, 30 inches in diameter
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Synchronicity being a particularly poetic feature of the Universe, there was a beautiful show at the Met, Cinnabar: The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer, which I saw the week before it closed. Another little gift: I photographed with no intererence from the guards. Here's my favorite:

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Lacquer platter at the Metropolitan Mueum of Art
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What's Up and Where

Scott Richter at Elizabeth Harris through March 13

Carolanna Parlato at Elizabeth Harris Gallery through March 13

Christopher Tanner at Pavel Zoubok through March 13

Diane Ayott at Kathryn Markel through March 13

Renee Magnanti at Tenri Cultural Institute through February 27

Chinese Lacquer at the Met ; over as of Feb. 21