"This One's For You" at DM Contemporary

Panoramic view of the summer show at DM Contemporary in New York City

The invitation to participate in This One's For You! Dedicated to Women Everywhere came with the request that the work have some connection to the female experience. Well, that was easy, since I regularly experience life as a female. I shared this story with Doris Mukabaa Marksohn, the gallery owner/director: When I was in art school I had one particularly benighted painting professor (they were all male) who offered me this advice: "You have to decide whether you want to be a woman or an artist. You can't be both."

I drew my 19-year-old self up to full height and replied, "You don't seem to have a problem with being both a man and an artist." He looked surprised. I left the studio, stunned at his ignorance and surprised (and pleased) at my own still-teenage response. I never stopped painting. I am still a woman and still an artist. Not all the artists in this exhibition are women, but the men here are all far more enlightened than that troglodyte professor of yore. Let me take you on a walk-through of the show.

The entrance to the gallery is at left. This is the view as you enter and turn toward the galleries. Photo at left: Federico Busonero, Al-Nu'man, Palestine, 2009, archival  pigment print on Canson Platine paper. The rest you'll see as we walk around

Matthew Langley, Currer Bell, top, and A.M. Barnard, both 2017, acrylic on museum board

Panorama of the front gallery with a view to the back

Louise P. Sloane, Pinks, 2017, acrylic and pastes on 400-lb. Arches cold-press

Cheryl Yun installation. Each bag makes a political statement

Of Baghdad Chain Bag, 2017, below, the artist says, "Violence at a campaign rally in Baghdad, including car bomb explosion, killed more than 30 people."
Newsprint and Rives BFK 

Richard Bottwin, Square and Angle #6, 2001, acrylic paint on wood

Side view below

We are in the second gallery looking back to where we just were. Here from left: Nancy Manter, Marietta Hoferer, Susan Hamburger

Nancy Manter, Stay Still, 2016, flashe and charcoal on paper

Marietta Hoferer, Silver Band, 2016, tape and silverpoint on plyke paper

Debra Ramsay photo from the internet

Susan Hamburger's rogues gallery of unfeminist woman. From top, Ann Coulter Saucer, 2009; Sarah Palin Plate, 2010; Nancy Reagan Plate, 2010; Mary Matalin Saucer, 2009; all acrylic on paperclay

A visual sweep of the gallery: Manter, Hoferer, Hamburger;  Macyn Bolt, Zoe Keramea,  Margaret Neill, Joanne Mattera

Top: Macyn Bolt, Untitled (BWC), Untitled (BWA), Untitled (BWD), each 2017,  acrylic on paper

Bottom: Zoe Keramea, Variation of the X Chromosome-IV, graphite on paper; Variation on the X Chromosome-III, ink on paper; Variation on the X Chromosome-V, hand-cut white paper mounted on black; all 2017

Margaret Neill, Transit series 3, left, and Transit series 4; both 2017, ink on panel

Joanne Mattera, Chromatic Geometry 26, 2015, and Chromatic Geometry 30, 2016; both encaustic on panel

Mattera, Michael Kukla

Michael Kukla, Stratal 312, 2012, laminated plywood

Frances Richardson,  Elizabeth Duffy

Frances Richardson, I Was There (from the "I'm Here" series), 2013, graphite on paper
Gallery photo

Elizabeth Duffy, Portrait of a 19th C. Lady (from the "Shard Portraits" series), 2012-13, archival inkjet print on Hannemuhle paper

Continuing around the second gallery with Tomomi Ono, Seed-flow VI, 2002, lithograph on kitakata rice paper

Now we're going to walk back through the first gallery, past the two framed works on paper by Louise P. Sloane,  and through a short hallway to . . .

Linda Cummings, Selected works from the "Miss-ery Pageant Performance," 2016; pigment print in frame, felt banners with gold trim, black in lettering, hangers 

In the office/gallery: Carole Freysz Gutierrez, Women's March in Washington, D.C., 2017, acrylic on canvas

Katsumi Suzuki, clockwise from top left: Untitled, photogravure; Untitled, oil on wood; Untitled, 2016, photogravure; Untitled, oil on wood

Closer view: Katsumi Suzuki, Untitled

Lita Kelmenson, Wanderers 1, 2 and 3, 2016, wood

The exhibition is up through September 16
 Check with the gallery for summer hours

"Hybrid Form" at Thatcher Projects

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When you're an exhibiting artist with a blog, you have to be careful to not go overboard with the me, me, me. But I'm in a group show, Hybrid Form, at Margaret Thatcher Projects in Chelsea with six other artists (up through July 21), so there's plenty of room for all of us in this post. Consider it not a review or even a report but simply a walk-through. The artists are Frank Badur, Omar Chacon, Freddy Chandra, Kevin Finklea, Ted Larsen, Richard Roth, and myself.

The press release describes the show as challenging the strictures of what constitutes a painting, reading in part: “This stretching of the definition of painting follows the tradition of earlier artists such as Rauschenberg who focused on pushing the boundaries of essentialism in art, bridging the gulf between painting, subject, and object.”

Panorama of the front gallery at Margaret Thatcher Projects. Looking in from the entrance, from left: Two by Richard Roth, Frank Badur, Roth, Badur; right wall: Freddy Chandra, Kevin Finklea, Ted Larsen

I want to be careful to not impose my opinions on this show, but I will offer some quick observations: The objectness of these works is very much in evidence, particularly expressed in the way sides and edges are treated, and there is attention to how the artists have put their work together. There's nothing provisional here; everything is crafted by artists who have spent years honing their skills in the studio. Materiality is evident as well. We work not only in oil but in acrylic, wax, resin, wood, and salvaged metal. Color is saturated, sometimes quirky.  OK, let’s look.

From left as you enter the gallery: Roth, Roth, Badur, Roth

Richard Roth

Above: Speed Bump 2, 2016m acrylic on birch panel

Below: Still Hell-Bent

Continuing clockwise around the gallery: Roth bracketed by Badur

Frank Badur, Untitled (Yellow), 1994, oil and alkyd on linen

Gallery photo

Richard Roth, Mambo Italiano, 2017, acrylic on birch panel

Frank Badur, Untitled (Red), 1994, oil and alkyd on linen

Gallery photo

Corner detail below 

 Freddy Chandra, Thicket, 2016, acrylic and resin on canvas; Kevin Finklea

Thicket detail below

Kevin Finklea, Hunter #1, 2017, acrylic on canvas (top) and acrylic on poplar- and birch-veneer plywood

Detail below

Ted Larsen

 View from the hallway looking into the front gallery
Left: Ted Larsen; in distance: Chandra, Finklea, Larsen

Ted Larsen, New Routine, 2016; salvage steel, hardware, welded steel, chemicals

 Pivoting in the hallway to look toward the back gallery
Larsen on either side of the support beam; Chandra

 Freddy Chandra, Boreal, 2016, acrylic and resin on cast acrylic; Ted Larsen, Extra Ordinary, 2017; salvage steel, hardware, welded steel, chemicals

 From the hallway looking into the Project Room

Foreground: Kevin Finklea, Key #1, 2017, acrylic on laminated poplar- and birch-veneer plywood
In the gallery: nine new paintings from Silk Road, my ongoing series

In the Project Room
From left: Larsen, Finklea, Mattera, Chacon

Ted Larsen, Passive Challenge, 2017, salvaged steel on reclaimed cardboard

Gallery photo

Kevin Finklea

Above and below: two views of Dominion 1, 2013

Gallery photos

Joanne Mattera, installation view of Silk Road, 2017, encaustic on panel

Silk Road 360
Silk Road 361

Omar Chacon, Le Jaune Mesalina, 2017, acrylic on canvas

Side detail below 

More: See a video of the June 8 opening posted on by NYC Gallery Openings