Color: Field and Form, Part 11

Part 1: Truitt, Appleby, Jackson, Shils, Donaldson
Part 2: Estrada-Vega, Johnston, Korman, Gimblett

Part 3: Aaron, Chong, Glessner, Mattera

Part 4: Von Heyl

Part 5: Goodwin

Part 6: Florian 

Part 7: Hicks, Lasserre

Part 8: Hoke, Kline 

Part 9: Haussmann, Rumford. Derbes, Johnston, Lipton, Mittenthal, Wright, Dancy, Boyajian

Part 10: Hudson Valley: Fishman, Goodman, Natale, Azara, Bjork



50 Shades of Gray

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We're at the penultimate post in this series with work by Fran Shalom, Debra Ramsay and Martha Clippinger. Their solo exhibitions took place in New York City in late winter and throughout the spring. All three artists share color as an integral element expressed via a kind of organic geometry. Ramsay and Clippinger express their esthetic by material means--encaustic and wood, respectively. Clippinger is the sculptor of the group, repurposing what appear to be lumberyard castoffs, though you could make a case for the work as painting.

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Fran Shalom

The Painting Center.

Flimflam, 2012, oil on panel, 24 x 24 inches

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Formal and quirky, Fran Shalom's paintings are typically small to easel size with a glorious sense of color. Shalom employs a personal language that embodies geometric and biomorphic shapes for the telling, dipping into a visual Esperanto shared by painters like Andrew Masullo, Stephen Mueller and Thomas Nozkowski. 

 

Shalom's next solo is at John Davis Gallery in Hudson, October 11 - November 4. You can read an interview with her on the Lisa Pressman Art Blog.

Installation view from the entrance, looking into the middle gallery, with Flimflam on the short wall

 

Below: The far right corner of the long wall you see in the image above, swinging around to a third wall

 

Wiggleroom, 2011, oil on wood, 22 x 28 inches

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Below: The end of that third wall with Wiggleroom on the short fourth wall 

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Debra Ramsay

Blank Space, Desire Lines, April 19 - May 19

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Cruel Desire, 2012

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In landscape architecture, "desire lines" are the intuitively effective paths created by people walking from one point to another, ignoring the architecturally imposed placement of concrete walkways. In Desire Lines, we see the intuitively effective path Debra Ramsay has taken in her practice. Working with the materiality of encaustic paint, Ramsay operates within  predetermined systems that she has set for herself--spatial divisions or, here in the work shown, fixed divisions of time--and then allows chance to affect the outcome. In the works you see here, she has poured the molten paint from a fixed point, allowing the paint to find its intuitive path, guided by gravity, the cooling of the paint, and the angle at which the artist holds the painting.

Installation view from the entry, showing Cruel Desire.

Odd Days, 2012.

 

First Breath. 2012

Paintings shown are encaustic on panel, approximately 12 x 12 inches

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Martha Clippinger

Elizabeth Harris Gallery, Hopscotch, January 5 -  February 4

Andalusia, 2010, acrylic on wood

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Martha Clippinger's small painted sculptures, constructed from irregular wood scraps, are funky and imperfect. I mean that in the most positive way, for while the edges may be unfinished each idea is complete. There's a geometric sense of order that rubs up against an anarchic sensibility. I like that. You can see a connection to the work of Richard Tuttle, of course, but these works have their own presence, playful yet pushy. An inspired installation placed the pieces on the floor, at eye level, in corners, even high overhead on the wall, offering an engagement with the work--part sculpture, part painting--that complemented its eccentric character.

 

View into the gallery's smaller second space, showing Andalusia, left, high on wall. My own photos of this exhibition did not turn out well, so all photos are from the Elizabeth Harris Gallery website

Reflection, 2010, acrylic on wood

Below: Installation view showing Reflection on back wall

s.wall, 2010, acrylic on wood

 

Below: Installation view looking toward entry, showing the placement of the sculpture

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