Kaveri Raina at Hammond Harkins Galleries, Columbus, Ohio

November 16, 2016 By artperiscope in Exhibitions Tags: Abstract Painting, burlap, contemporary art, Contemporary Painting, Female artists, female painters, Hammond Harkins Galleries, India, Indian American painters, Kaveri Raina, painters, Painting 3 Comments

Prefer the Past, Acrylic, burlap, 70 x 40 inches

Alchemy is occurring at Hammond Harkins Galleries in Columbus, Ohio where Kaveri Raina has opened a portal to another world in her magical first solo at the gallery.

Prefer the Past (detail)

Kaveri, a native of New Delhi, spent part of her childhood in India before relocating to the United States in 2000, and the works on display at Hammond Harkins reflect that dual sense of place. But it would be a disservice to Ms. Raina to say the canvases merely straddle two worlds; They create new ones. By fusing her connections with India, it’s traditions, colors, textures and mythology with a contemporary approach to painting Ms. Raina re-interprets centuries of tradition with fresh eyes, synthesizing a bridge between past and future. The paintings burlap supports, referencing the vessels that transported the rice and staples of her youth and the humble textiles of the marginalized become transportive vessels of another sort under Kaveri’s skillful hand. Painting from both the back and front of the support and using the burlap’s rugged, tactile transparency, Ms. Kaveri evokes the push and pull of past and present, the ephemeral and the visceral, the seen and unseen, the forgotten and the remembered. Her use of overlapping mythical forms, staining of surface and lush layered color further envelope the viewer in a landscape of dreams and memory, awakening the senses and catapulting the viewer from the temporal realm into the sensual beyond.

Gallery view from entrance

Walking Around, Acrylic, oil pastel, burlap, 60 x 48 Inches

From left: Shy Around and Prefer the Past

Shy Around, Acrylic, burlap, 60 x 48 Inches

From Right: Will I Be Missed (Future), Overthrow Slightly and Stray Delight

Will I Be Missed (Future), Acrylic, dye, burlap, 70 x 40 Inches

Overthrow Slightly, Acrylic, dye, burlap, 70 x 40 Inches

Stray Delight, Acrylic, burlap, 70 x 40 inches

From right: Forgotten Pleasures, Shy In, Hanuman Mukut and Will I Be Missed

Forgotten Pleasures, Acrylic, dye, burlap , 70 x 40 inches

Forgotten Pleasures (Detail)

Shy In, Acrylic, burlap, 60 x 48 Inches

Hanuman Mukut

Will I Be Missed, Acrylic, dye, burlap, 70 x 40 inches

For more information about Hammond Harkins Galleries and Kaveri Raina please check out their websites at:

http://www.hammondharkins.com

http://www.kaveriraina.com

Philip Guston: Painter 1957 – 1967 at Hauser & Wirth

July 21, 2016 By artperiscope in Exhibitions Tags: #abstraction, Abstract Painting, art, contemporary art, Contemporary Painting, painters Leave a comment

Philip Guston: Painter 1957 – 1967 at Hauser & Wirth, New York covers the pivotal decade in Guston’s career during which the artist broke from abstraction, which made him famous in the 1950’s, and began a return to figuration.. The exhibition, a collection of 36 paintings and 56 drawings, is an absorbing exploration of the journey of process and experimentation that transformed the artist’s oeuvre.

For more information about the exhibition and Philip Guston please check out the Hauser & Wirth website at:

http://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/2722/philip-guston-painter-1957-y-1967/view/

From left: Traveller III, 1959 – 1960 & Painter, 1959, both Oil on Canvas

Painter courtesy of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta

From left: Turn, 1959, Oil on Panel & Turnabout, 1959, Oil on paper mounted on Panel

Turn, 1959, Oil on Panel, 22 5/8″ x 28 1/2″ Private Collection

Turnabout, 1959, Oil on Panel, 22 1/8″ x 30 1/8″ Private Collection

Untitled, c. 1959. Oil on paper mounted on panel, 18 1/8″ x 24 1/8″, Private Collection

Untitled, 1958, Oil on Canvas, 64 1/8 x 75 1/4″, Private Collection

Accord I, 1962, Oil on Canvas, 68 1/8 x 78 1/8″, Private Collection

From Left: Vessel, 1960 and Slope II, 1961, both works Oil on panel

Vessel, 1960, Oil on panel, 30 1/8″ x 21 7/8″, Private Collection

Slope II, 1961, Oil on paper mounted on canvas, 40 1/2″ x 30 3/4″, Private Collection

From left: Portrait I, 1965, Stranger, 1964 and Reverse, 1965 . All works Oil on Canvas

Looking, 1964, Oil on Canvas, 67 7/8″ x 80 1/8″, Private Collection

Painter III, 1963, Oil on Canvas, 66″ x 79″, Private Collection, London

Untitled, 1967 – 1969, 48 Drawings, Charcoal and Ink on Paper, Variable Dimensions, Private Collection

From left: Inhabiter, 1965, May Sixty-Five, 1965 and Afternoon, 1964

May Sixty-Five, 1965, Oil on Canvas, 70″ x 80″, Lewis Family Collection

Afternoon, 1964, Oil on Canvas, 74″ x 80 1/4″, Private Collection

Barbara Ellmann: An Open Book 2 at the Marks Art Center

April 20, 2016 By artperiscope in Exhibitions Tags: art, contemporary art, Contemporary Painting, Encaustic, encaustic painting, exhibitions, Female artists, female painters, paint, painters, Painting Leave a comment

I had the great pleasure of seeing Barbara Ellmann’s dynamic exhibition, An Open Book 2, at the Walter N. Marks Center for the Arts in Palm Desert, California last month. The exhibition, which ran from February 4 to March 11, was partially funded by the McCallum Theatre Institute’s Aesthetic Education Program, produced in conjunction with the Marks Art Center at the College of the Desert and was beautifully curated by Sophia Marisa Lucas. The Marks always presents terrifically exciting, innovative shows and I am continually impressed by the quality of their curatorial focus. An Open Book 2 was no exception.

For more information about the Marks Art Center and Barbara Ellmann:

http://www.collegeofthedesert.edu/community/gallery/Pages/default.aspx

https://barbaraellmann.com

Nick Theobald: With Honey From The Rock at Richard Taittinger Gallery

November 23, 2015 By artperiscope in Uncategorized Tags: Beeswax, contemporary art, Contemporary Painting, Encaustic, Nick Theobald, painters, Painting, Richard Taittinger Gallery, wax Leave a comment

There is a particular sensation that comes with rain. Time slows and one’s tactile appreciation of touch, sound and smell is heightened. One luxuriates in that sensation as the perception of time slows with the elongated drumming pause that accompanies the steady fall of liquid from the sky. I felt that sense of suspension while viewing Nick Theobald’s almost reverential solo at Richard Taittinger Gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The works present in the gallery slow one’s sense of time and bathe the viewer in their tranquil, organic materiality like rain.

More information about Nick Theobald and Richard Taittinger Gallery can be found on their websites below. With Honey From The Rock runs through December 12th. Richard Taittinger Gallery , 154 Ludlow Street, New York, NY.

http://richardtaittinger.com

http://nick-theobald.com

Detail

Ben Quilty “Straight White Male” at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong

January 23, 2015 By artperiscope in Uncategorized Tags: Ben Quilty, painters, Painting, pearl lam gallery 2 Comments

Ben Quilty’s solo “Straight White Male” at Pearl Lam Galleries was the highlight of a day spent gallery hopping in Hong Kong. The canvases are a mixture of portrait and landscapes, but what sets them apart and what appealed to me was the muscular application of paint and the fashion with which it is applied and manipulated. The work has a freedom and coiled psychosis that is both beautiful and nightmarish. Many of the works use a technique that borrows from mono printing where the canvas is literally printed with the mirror image of it’s other half. By folding the canvas in two and printing it, Quilty references and exploits the ink blot tests created by Rorschach in the 19th century. The works are both test and test subject, blurring the line for the viewer between what is perceived and what is experienced.

http://www.pearllam.com/city/hong-kong/