In the new paintings, several planes of visual information collide:
the abstract application of paint on the surface and a photographic representation of another place and time masked in the background, each layer obliterating the last.
Not exact matches
However, through the thinness
of his
application of the acrylic
paint Warhol has characteristically drained the broad brush strokes
of any distinctive personality, thus flying in the face
of earlier critical and popular appraisals
of abstract expressionism as a record
of the psyche
of the artist.
Gilliam established himself at the forefront
of American abstraction while working in Washington, D.C. in the 1960s, when his experiments with
paint application and his radical transformation
of the canvas support profoundly expanded the possibilities for the future
of abstract painting.
Her process - led,
abstract painting practice employs a tempered gestural language where fluidity is a defining material concern and the process
of erasure has equal importance to the intuitive
application of paint.
Termed Color Field
painting by the art critic and champion
of American
abstract painting, Clement Greenberg, it was defined and differentiated from
Abstract Expressionism by an intense approach to color theory and a revolutionary
application of paint.
His «spray loop»
paintings, produced by using a spray
paint gun, were a fascinating embodiment
of the reductive
abstract tendencies in 1960s American art, and
of the interest
of the time in innovative
applications of new techniques.
Eva Berendes» practice draws on the history and language
of abstract painting in conjunction with the
application of craft and applied arts.
From Joan Mitchell's loaded brushwork in Before, Again IV (1985) to Wayne Thiebaud's
painting Candy Counter (1962), in which lush pigment seems to frost the images
of cakes, a tactile
application of paint energizes both
abstract and figurative canvases.
The formal language
of his
paintings is
abstract, while the visual means range from simple line drawings to thick paste - like
applications of paint.
Sam Francis's untitled monotype composition signals the culmination
of the artist's career - long investigation
of abstract painterly procedures: the aggressively stroked red field and chance
application of colorful drips and blots energize the surface
of this broad horizontal frame, synthesizing the dynamism
of Jackson Pollock's drip
paintings and the powerfully reductive aesthetics
of Color Field
painting of the 1940s and 50s.
The moody dystopian atmospheres are punctuated by subtle color shifts and a variety
of paint applications varying from meticulous rendering to loose,
abstract expressionist strokes, describing figures and places like a visual shorthand.
Additionally, even when he was inspired by Chinese art, notably by a trip he made to China in 1987, and became more gestural and intuitive in his
application of paint, he did not accept one
of the longstanding, underlying assumptions
of New York - based abstraction, dating back at least to Frank Stella, which was the widely accepted belief that
abstract painting could be both objective and immediately accessible.
Wang's vivid yellow «Untitled» and vibrant «Coffin»
paintings both serve to record the
abstract concept
of time through the
application of paint, with layers added over a period
of several weeks.
The coloured threads are compressed and then pulled apart, like the
application of impasto
paint with the loose drip effect
of abstract expressionism.
The thick
application of the
paint created an element
of objectivity Richter felt was missing in
abstract art.
Like her husband, the Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning was interested in
abstracting the human form through gestural mark - making with black lines and the direct
application of pure, unmixed
paint colors juxtaposed, rather than blended, on the surface.
Like in an
abstract expressionist
painting, the subject
of Cycle becomes the gesture and
application of paint.
His
abstract paintings realised in the late 1950s and early 1960s involved a fluid
application of oil
paint mixed with turpentine, a technique that he had learnt from Victor Pasmore, and these works were reminiscent
of the impressionist style.
Over the past four decades, Frize has intentionally reduced his practice to the
application of color to a canvas, developing a seemingly endless array
of methods for making chromatically brilliant,
abstract paintings.
On the opposite side is a small but intense vertical abstraction by Louise Nevelson, and a cityscape by Alice Neel: I am particularly fond
of works by Alice Neel that are not portraits, but still lifes and cityscapes, because one can appreciate her drawing and
paint application in a different manner when they are not applied to her strong sense
of figuration which may overwhelm a viewer's ability to fully appreciate her more
abstract qualities.
Revelation: Major
Paintings by Jules Olitski at American University Museum walks the viewer through Olitski's creative evolution as an
abstract artist, demonstrating the breadth
of his experiments in light, color, texture,
application and technique.
These city
paintings, many
of them
of the city's main bridges, share commonalities with the funky return to representation and figuration via a meld
of loose
abstract expressionist brush strokes and
paint application — lots
of scumbling and blobs
of paint — and a sort
of ecstatic folk primitivism adopted by his contemporary and friends in New York in the mid to late 50s, such as Red Grooms, Robert Beauchamp, Gandy Brodie, Mimi Gross, Jan Müller, and Claes Oldenburg (with Eva Hesse picking up the tradition in the mid-60s).
Maine got a lot
of mileage out
of the indeterminate space between the
abstract and the photographic in his recent exhibition at 490 Atlantic, and this picture suggests a different take on that same exploration, here dropping his signature moiré pattern in favor
of a more direct approach to the
application of paint and a decidedly more aggressive palette.