GeoMetrics II at Gallery One Twenty Eight

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I spend so much of my time in Chelsea that going to the Lower East Side is like an out-of-town trip. I went there with map in hand. Not that I'm totally unfamiliar with the LES, I just don't have the order of streets in my mind the way I do other parts of the city. Allen? Chrystie? Essex? Orchard? I get confused.

But I do know Rivington Street. Geometrics II marks the third time I have been in a group show at Gallery OneTwentyEight, located at #128. (The first was in 1997 when Harmony Hammond curated Material Girls: Gender, Process and Abstract Art Since 1970; the second was two years later when Sylvia Netzer curated Pieces III, an exhibition of work made with substantially material means.)

These days, Rivington--east of Bowery and right around the corner from the New Museum--is smack in the middle of an area that is chockablock with new galleries: Sue Scott, Eleven Rivington, both on Rivington; Number 35 on Essex Street; Canada on Chrystie; and Invisible Exports on Orchard. Just to name a few.

Looking from front to back, before the gallery filled up

For Geometrics II, curator Gloria Klein selected 12 artists from the Geoform website. Geoform, as I've mentioned in the past, is a fabulous online resource dedicated to abstract geometric art maintained by Julie Karabenick. Gloria and Julie are two of the 12 artists in the show. The others are Steven Alexander, Laura Battle, Mark Dagley, Julie Gross, Michael Knutson, Bruce Pollock, Lynda Ray, Larry Spaid, Lorien Suarez and me. (Specifics on the sidebar, right.)

I'm not sure what drove Gloria's selections--because the work ranges from hard edged and mathematically inspired to intuitive and more organically developed, and from maximal to minimal--but you can see from the installation that it works. All the paintings are modest in size, in keeping with the gallery's modest (well, shoebox) proportions. Given the economic downturn, there was something comforting about the scale, though at one point artists and friends were packed in pretty much check by jowl.

You can see more on the gallery's website, and read an opinion of the show at Chris Rywalt's blog, NYC Art. So here just let me say that I loved the installation, and I'm delighted to be showing with these hard-working and accomplished mid-career artists.

The view as you enter: Counterclockwise, my two paintings, Vicolo 35 and Vicolo 36; Gloria Klein's mathematically complex and visually mesmerizing crystalline composition, Beach Umbrellas; Steven Alexander's ordered color blocks, Calypso Rose; Lynda Ray's two small patterned geometries, Float Copper and Driftway

The image above moves you around the gallery

Below, continuing counterclockwise: Bruce Pollock's almost monochrome circles within circles, Red Square Cluster; Michael Knutson's organic and mathematic composition, Crossing Oval Coils XII, which is so energetic it almost gives off sparks; Mark Dagley's 16-point circle, Distressed Orb; and Julie Gross's sensuous circles, Mirro-B

Two more views

Above: Following the counterclockwise movement from Lynda Ray's two paintings, there are two framed works from Larry Spaid, and Lorien Suarez's intersecting circles, Wheel Within a Wheel 28. (I think "intersecting" characterizes the curator's selections, as there are many points of connection between and among the works.)

Below: Julie Karabenick's Composition 78, 2008, acrylic on cancas, 30 x 30 inches, at far left, the last work as you swing around counterclockwise from the front door

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Curator Gloria Klein standing in front of her painting, Beach Umbrellas, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches



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Three of the artists from the show, above: Steven Alexander (in leather jacket), Michael Knutson barely visible behind him, and Larry Spaid. Foreground: painter Binnie Birstein with her back to the camera; background, sculptor Richard Bottwin



Curator Gloria Klein with her back to the camera. (The camera is looking to the front of the gallery.) .

Awash in Color: More Friends of Mr. Biv

Click here for "No Chromophobia."

So a friend e-mailed me the other day to ask, "Who is this Mr. Biv?" If anyone is similarly confounded, think back to third grade. It's the mnemonic used to help you remember the spectrum. Remember?

Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

Since we're discussing Roy (and in the interest of equal representaton, it could just as easily have been Rona, you know), I'd like to show the work of a few more of his friends. Most of these folks I know, a few others I don't. I'm motivated strictly by the chromatic intelligence of their work. For some of these artists, color is not necessarily the dominant element, it's the geometry. But we don't have to take sides, as color and composition are perfect complements.

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Julie Karabenick, Composition 71, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

I curated Julie's work into Luxe, Calme et Volupte last year at the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta. I'm impressed with the intellectual rigor and physical demands of her work. On such a pristine surface, there's no going back and painting over. Decisions made are decisions maintained. This is a breakthrough painting, because there's now a figure-ground relationship in the work, and the color has a chance to interact with the viewer's eye from various points in a visually dimensional space. Julie is the editor of Geoform. You can see her work there, or on her own website, Karabenick-Art.

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Marcia Hafif,TGGT 12: (Red-Gold, Violet), 22 x 22", oil on Canvas, 2006. Image from the Marcia Hafif website

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I've seen her work in person here and there over the years--Larry Becker in Philadelphia, the now-closed Baumgartner Gallery in Chelsea, and a few months ago at a gallery showing at Pulse in New York. Though relatively small--modestly proportioned easel size work--each painting has a huge presence. Her newer work is divided vertically, each section containing a different hue. Considering what she said about painting in 1990, her more current work is positively image laden:

"Having taken into consideration years ago the consensus decision of the art world that painting was no longer acceptable as an art form, it seemed necessary to move my awareness to a second level. Accepting the idea that one could no longer paint in good faith, I thought it would be possible to paint on another level, one providing a certain distance, in order to look at the paint rather than at its subject. It would be possible to paint "as if" one were painting, using the materials and techniques of painting, but without referring to a separate subject. This thinking led me to monochrome. Thus I do not paint with the intention of making a painting as such, but I work from the outside of painting using traditional methods and materials to discover a new image. " (Why Paint: Marcia Hafif from the catalog Marcia Hafif: Red Paintings, Verlag der Galerie Conrads, Neuss 1990 ).

In this relatively newer work, the vertical created by the abutting of two colors creates an image--a "painting as such"--but it does so on Hafif's terms.

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Chris Ashley, Cluny, 2008, HTML image

Chris works in a unique way, creating "drawings" directly on his computer screen using HTML code. They could easily be called "paintings," but I'm using his preferred word. The work is created using, I think, numbers that translate into blocks of color, so it's keystrokes rather than brush strokes that make the work. Lately, the work has made the leap off the screen and into a printed image, which makes me call them "paintings," but I suppose technically that would make them prints. In this new incarnation the saturated color on creamy paper has the look and visual feel of super-saturated gouache on watercolor paper. Visit his website, Look See, to see much more.

BTW, Chris wrote about my work in his blog a couple of years ago. Then I curated him into my Luxe, Calme et Volupte show. (You see how my blog world has very few degrees of separation; but then, that's true for the entire art world, where three degrees will probably take you back to the Cave Painters). In the fall we're going to be in a show called "Calculated Color," curated by the painter Jane Lincoln, at the Higgins Gallery on Cape Cod. Oh, and we're both part of the Geoform.project, along with Lyda Ray, below. Full disclaimer, yo.

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John Tallman, Color Stack, 2007, polyurethane resin, 1o x 10 inch diameter

Tallman is a painter and sculptor for whom materiality is essential. Indeed, you can't disentangle the painter from the sculptor any more than you can disentangle the color from the form. Visit his website and his Color Chunks blog to see what I mean. I don't know him, but when I found his blog I felt an instant affinity for what he's doing.

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Bill Gusky, Crush, 2007, enamel on urethane, 21 x 19 inches

I didn't know Bill until we we showed together in the Blogger Show, organized by John Morris, in the East Village last fall. That's when I saw this painting and purchased it for my collection. (More no degrees.) I've still not actually met him, so I don't actually know him, but I feel as if I do, partly because I wake up to his painting every morning and partly because I read his blog, Artblog Comments, regularly. Anyway, I like the way Bill combines color and form and material. See more at Bill Gusky.com

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Lynda Ray, Float Copper, encaustic on panel, 14 x 18 inches

I was introduced to Lynda's work when I was looking at images for my book, the The Art of Encaustic Painting. Her slides vibrated right out of the envelope. Like John Tallman and Bill Gusky, above, Lynda mixes color, form (via sensuously slathered paint) and materiality--and she maintains a geometric sensibility as well. See more on Lynda Ray Art.com

I suppose "Friends of Mr. Biv" will become a recurring feature on this blog. Stay tuned.