Jonathan Stevenson discusses Stephanie’s “coolly seductive” paintings on display at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in Dublin. Below is one of many titled “Emotional Calculus” like the show itself. He notes that, in “due course, the paintings reveal deeper intent, which is to complicate and enrich your ultimate apprehension of the presumptively simple life.”
#stephaniedeady
I first wrote about Timothy when BmoreArt noted the “systematic rigor” in States of Mind in 2021.
Updating the blog as he recently passed. If you have a moment and need some sad but uplifting prose read Cara Ober’s homage to this artist and teacher.
#timothyapp
I wasn’t familiar with Allie until I saw below in an ArtNews article about updates to the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection*.
Allie McGhee has been a leading figure in the Detroit art scene since the 1960s. Initially a figurative painter, McGhee moved away from representation and toward the more universal abstract language he is best known for today. His mixed-media paintings, including sculptural works in which he folds, bends, and crumples the canvas, are notable for their signature arcing forms and brilliant washes of color.
*The DIA was among the first museums anywhere to build and exhibit a collection of African American art, which it began in 1943. In 2001 it became the first US museum to name a curator devoted to that field in Valerie J. Mercer, who still serves as the museum’s curator and head of African American art.
#alliemcghee
is a New Mexico artist whose sewn canvas paintings, constructed paper pieces and long unryu paper scrolls in sumi and acrylic are visual metaphors for theories in quantum physics and the study of consciousness.
#signestuart
Lawre Stone shouts out Meg’s newest noting they make enormity relatable.
This blog also represents a change for me. I posted about Meg once already in 2019 noting at the time the work was “one of the most interesting takes on the question of what is painting I’ve seen recently”- this is her IG post to which I linked. Prior to, well, today, I’ve typically avoided writing about an artist more than once, as a big part of this practice for me has been discovering new work or researching the canon. And, I have realized that keeping this catalog fresh is a legitimate way to pay respect to creatives that are working to stay relevant, so this will probably not be the last time I revisit a painter or other creative.
#meglipke
is (posthumously) one half of After the Responsive Eye at Pie Projects Contemporary Art (along with Signe Stuart
#olisihvonen
makes objects through which we view space, light and surface; they relate to domestic spaces in his birth place, Puerto Rico.
#edrasoto
is one of the creatives featured (posthumously) in the group show “Fold, Drape, Repeat” now up at Ceysson & Bénétière (Two Coats essay contributed by Marjorie Welish). A select showing of work by the loosely aggregated French collective Supports/Surfaces, the exhibition embodies the very assembly involved in making art. Devade’s first intention was not to devote himself to painting. Initially a poet, fascinated by philosophy, it was when he met Marcelin Pleynet, who published his first poems in Tel Quel in 1964, that he became more particularly interested in painting. He became one of the main animators of the debates on the relationships between practice and theory in the field of visual arts.
#marcdevade
shows with Thaddeus Ropac (they show some names you know including Heemin and Joan and also Sean Scully who I just wrote quite a bit about). His work is on the edge of figuration/landscape like Dorothea and Maggie also Elliot.
#alibansidar
Local (to the Triangle!) writer Colony Little calls our attention to Uman’s kaleidoscopic journeys. Their journey spans from Somalia to New York (and soon the south of France); this self-taught artist transforms migration, memory, and emotion into vibrant worlds of movement and hue.
More and more
#uman
came up for me recently when writing Competition, as I was rereading my initial blog about Astrid and John Yau’s essay Whose Stripe Is It, Anyway? The subtitle conveys that Astrid was told that she could not paint stripes because Sean Scully and Frank Stella had done so before her (which I agree with John is a patently foolish statement).
So I’ve never blogged about Mr Scully. Reason being? I bet a number of you remember the Mr Shachter putting Scully on blast for a mind-boggling degree of self-regard in a BBC film about his life. In particular, the zinger in the article is that Scully says in the film “I’m the Donald Trump of the Art World.” Well I know the Brits were going through Brexit and Boris Johnson at the time (2019), and the amount of insensitivity it took to utter that really blew my mind and candidly broke my heart. 
Why? I’ve been moved by Scully’s work.  The first time I ever saw one in person was at the Met, and I remember coming around the corner to encounter a really large one in subdued colors on a dark wall and being almost overwhelmed with melancholy. He is often compared to Rothko, and my emotional experience of that work made it clear why. It was many years later that I also found myself inspired by his words – his Mark Rothko: Corps de-lumiere had a good deal of influence on me during my time in graduate school, as I struggled to describe how painting could “speak” to something directly, and in a way that words never could.
Have you ever seen his photography* btw???
So I am feeling grateful that a recent essay gave me a reason to revisit and sort through these feelings. I have said for many years now that part of the obligation that writers and teachers have in these types of situations is to point directly at the contradictions, and make the lesson that it is possible for canonic artists to be complex, flawed and gifted, as a way for us all to have a better understanding of the world and our selves.
*Also, and have you seen Ellsworth Kelly’s?
#seanscully
Heemin Chung investigates the material potential of digital images as she translates them into the mediums of painting and sculpture. Her work investigates how technology shapes contemporary perception and impacts our existential conditions. She is represented by Thaddaeus Ropac.
More
#heeminchung
Michael Brennan notes in Two Coats concurrent exhibitions up now – one at Mario Diacono Gallery in Boston, the other at Ghostmachine in New York – of Jodie Manasevit’s “fine, fierce paintings,” paying particular attention to the environments in which curator David Dixon sites them.
More
#jodiemanasevit
Painting After Art is Dead 