The Innocence of Trees, 4/21/17 - 6/10/17, at Drawing Rooms

by Bruce Halpin
6/19/17

Landscape as subject matter has had, in Europe at least, a long history as being of the lowest rank of the painting genres. In America, however, its importance has been significant. In the 19th Century, landscape painting became the vehicle through which American ideals were most consistently expressed. Landscape painting performed the role of documentary as the westward expansion pushed its way across the continent, and also served to remind society what was being destroyed in the process. The theme of Arcadia lost runs through much of 19th Century landscape painting accompanied by the nostalgia for "unspoiled nature", which was rapidly disappearing. Great forests were consumed by the pursuit of “progress" as the machinery of capitalist production was let loose on the wilderness. At the same time, nature was gaining ascendency as a manifestation of the “Divine” was expressed through transcendentalist writings. This inevitably led to contradiction; Thoreau was aware that the axe, which created his dwelling, was also responsible for lost trees, which he missed in much the same way as he might miss a human companion. Nature was seen as an expression of God’s will and its representation took on spiritual overtones. It is against this backdrop that can be seen as a contemporary exploration of the spiritual in nature as expressed through trees. In her book, Nature and Culture, Barbara Novak identifies two complementary aspects of the American Sublime: Grand Opera and the Still Small Voice. The works in this show belong predominantly to the latter, although some share aspects of grander scale.

Kathleen Vance, Traveling Landscape Blue Marbled Stack,
2016, 39" x 29" x 17"

Kathleen Vance’s intimate works allow the viewer to enter miniature landscapes of the artist’s design. Placed within pieces of outdated luggage chosen for their emotional resonance, these pieces portray scenes based on the artist’s experience, but are not a recreation of any particular place. Ms. Vance intends her work as a meditation on the use and ownership of land and provide a respite from the fast pace of contemporary life. Jewel-like and precious (in a good way), these works serve to remind us of the value of nature’s restorative effect on the human spirit.

Dana Scott, Ghost Forrest, installation, 2017

Dana Scott’s installation “Ghost Forrest” immerses the viewer within an environment created by columns of printed chiffon fabric hung on metal semi hoops attached to the wall. The sheer chiffon creates a subtle tension between a photograph of an Aspen forest printed on the surface and what can be seen of the room through the fabric. Site-specific, this work takes on the intimate quality of the room in which it is installed. One could imagine this work existing on a much larger scale.

Geoffrey Sokol, Trees With Stone In Snow, 2017,
photograph, 15" x 10"

Geoffrey Sokol employs a more conventional approach to photography. Mr. Sokol utilizes both digital and film to create his images, depending on the mood he wishes to invoke. Although the photos appear to be black and white, all, save one, are in color, albeit extremely subtle in effect. These photos reflect both Mr. Sokol’s interest in Japanese prints as well as 19th Century photography. The very subtle handling of color is reminiscent of early photographs and evoke a mood of nostalgic revery. The result is poignant and beautiful.

Shelley Haven, La Vieja, 2001, 15 1/4 " x 12 1/4"

Shelley Haven’s quiet, meditative paintings employ calligraphic depictions of branches as well as a sure color sense to achieve a moment of distilled emotion. One senses a quality of absorptive observation in their making. Each painting seems to reflect something real, seen and felt. A highly developed sense of light infuses these works, making them specific to a time of day. These paintings draw one in and create a feeling of timelessness.

James Pustorino, Spirals of Ascendance, 2008/9,
pencils, acrylics on denril, 90" x 96"

James Pustorino’s wall-sized mixed media works combine drawing and painting in an investigation into space and structural systems. Using multiple views and a multidimensional approach, he creates compelling images of trees, which exist in urban environments and are often overlooked. Mr. Pustorino’s method is intuitive yet precise, using observation and careful draughtsmanship to achieve his ends. These impressive works exist in a place where the philosophical and spiritual combine with a lively visual expression and fuse into a dazzling whole. As impressive as these large works are, his smaller drawings display a high degree of accomplishment as well as an engaging intimacy.

Julie Anne Mann, The Twins (diptych), 2014,
Walnut Burl, Etched Silver Leaf, 24" x 48" (each)

Julie Anne Mann has presented two compelling types of work; one two-dimensional, the other three-dimensional. Her “Starlet” and “The Twins” are both executed in etched silver on walnut burl. These works, which seem like portraits of anthropomorphized organic forms, have an eerie, haunting presence. The etched silver gives these forms a dramatic sense of light. Ms. Mann’s other work, “Threshold” is composed of gathered branches arranged in a circle on what could be considered the main wall of her exhibition space. The contemplative nature of this work is combined with a striking visual form and serves as a space for meditation. In a somewhat paradoxical way, the striking formal aspect of this work invites the most nuanced of reactions.

Anne Doris-Eisner, Tree Series - No. 12, Newport, 2016,
Acrylic on Paper, 24" x 52"

Anne Doris Levine Eisner’s work presented here consists of medium to large-scale drawings/paintings of tree trunks and branches executed in a variety of media on paper. These works express an intense emotional response to natural forms, which is reinforced by Ms. Eisner’s use of black white and grey in a highly charged manner. The works, which could almost be seen as confrontational, impress upon the viewer an intense physicality as if the images were wrought out of the most basic of gestures and technique. As such, they are highly effective as vehicles for Ms. Eisner’s obviously intense reactions to her subject.

Yeon Ji Yoo, detail of installation, 2017

Yeon Ji Yoo’s ambitious installation completely fills her room with an invented environment that employs fantasy, dreams, half-remembered images in a thoroughly overwhelming manner. Drawings and sculptural elements combine in a seamless whole of undeniable intensity. Ms. Yoo’s work evokes delicate ephemeral memories interwoven with a strong sense of material thingness, as if the forms are haunted by memories of a past which remains tantalizingly out of reach, yet exerts its presence in an almost unbearable emotionality. This installation requires time to experience and its meaning emerges slowly and piecemeal as the viewer moves through the room. Ms. Yoo’s formidable technical skills never seem to call attention to themself at the expense of overall effect. Ms. Yoo’s installation is both a poignant personal recollection combined with a technical tour de force.

Claire McConaughy, Grey Sky, 2017, Oil on canvas, 60” x 48”

According to Claire McConaughy, she has been painting trees as long as she’s been painting. To be clear, Ms. McConaughy makes painter’s paintings in which material is transformed by gesture into space and light. It is akin to alchemy, in which a base metal is transformed into gold, and is no less mysterious. Although Ms. McConaughy’s paintings are made in her studio, rather than Plein air, there is nonetheless a sure sense of light and place; these are real places. Ms. McConaughy's handling of paint evokes Manet in its deftness and sort of loose precision, while her color sense seems to be entirely of her own invention. The paintings here range in size from small and intimate to largish and dramatic, yet each evinces a pitch-perfect sense of scale. Also included in her exhibition are several drawings executed in powdered graphite and alcohol. These drawings are exquisite investigations into line and form. They invoke an almost uncanny sense of space and share the casual precision of the paintings.

"The Innocence of Trees” provides a multifaceted glimpse of the role of nature in contemporary art and underscores its importance as a source of contemplation and the spiritual succor, which can be found there. In these times when nature herself seems to be under attack, it is more important than ever to realize how fundamental it is to our existence. The curator of this show, Anne Trauben, deserves a special acknowledgment in bringing these artists with divergent expressive strategies together in a coherent whole.

The Innocence of Trees, 4/21/17 - 6/10/17, at Drawing Rooms, features installation, painting and photography by Kathleen Vance, Dana Scott, Geoffrey Sokol, Shelley Haven, James Pustorino, Julie Anne Mann, Anne Doris Levine Eisner and Yeon Ji Yoo. The exhibit is curated by Anne Trauben.

Bruce Halpin is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Bruce's bio here and view his artwork here.

Bold and Beautiful, 3/10/17 - 4/8/17, at Drawing Rooms

by Bruce Halpin
5/29/17

Webster's defines beautiful as “exciting aesthetic pleasure and generally pleasing: excellent. Beauty’s rather slippery definition allows for two distinct and possibly conflicting interpretations, only one of which is useful in discussing art. What is pleasing or harmonious in nature is just that; as a decidedly human dimension, the term beautiful can only be an attributed of art. Far from being a trivial concern, contemplation of the beautiful, as G.E Moore argues in his Principia Ethica, is along with human relationships, the greatest, or perhaps the only human good.

Subsequent to Edmund Burke's establishment of the sublime as the counter to the beautiful, beauty's validity has been subject to severe criticism and questionable status in aesthetic matters. Beauty, considered as pleasant or harmonious, has been in question as a desirable quality in art since Romanticism. Indeed, modernists eschewed “the beautiful” as superfluous and misleading as an aesthetic concern. What may be called “the beautiful” has been enjoying a restoration of reputation for some time now, and a deeper understanding of the role of beauty is emerging.

The latest show at Drawing Rooms in Jersey City, “Bold and Beautiful”, is testament to the validity of its reevaluation. Irony seems to have been banished in favor of a less distanced and more earnest engagement with beauty on the part of the artists in this show to varying degrees.

The artists are not aligned with any particular ideology, approach their work from different perspectives and engage with the history of their prospective mediums accordingly. Traditional techniques coexist with radical approaches without unnecessary friction. This is a show that allows artists to be who they are and cleverness is of less value than sincerity.

Ben Pranger, Tree of Caves, 2015, Papier--Mâché,
Wood and Acrylic, 43 x 32 x 25

Ben Pranger’s sculptures use color in an expressive way without succumbing to the decorative. They use color, but are not dependent on it– in fact, color seems to provide a parallel experience to form. The sculptures look perhaps like the nests of robotic insects, which happen to have a lively and sophisticated sense of color. They are fun. While all of the sculptures are fairly modest in size, they could easily exist in a much larger size and scale.

Jill Scipione, Undoing History, Palm Sunday, Male,
Pencil on Paper, 96 x 59

Jill Scipione’s drawings of skulls are sincere and powerful in a way that is not easily grasped. The effect is not that of momento, mori but some other less easily accessed emotion. Skulls are necessary reminders of our transience, that which remains after our passage through this life. Ms. Scipione’s use of skulls introduce a sense of monumentality in the way they are installed on the walls. The skulls are drawn life-size in a manner which invokes less an academic rendering, but a more scruffy, yet delicate approach, perhaps reminiscent of Leon Golub. Drawn from “life”, they evince careful observation delivered in an unstructured, yet controlled manner. Ms. Scipione locates the meaning of her work in the consideration of the human body as an expression of the spiritual. Her use of skulls, which span a large temporal and geographical range, engage concepts of human individuality and the redemption only possible through an undoing of history in order to restore hope and justice to all of humanity.

David French, Madame LeBlanc, 2014, 

Oil and Gold Powder on Herringbone Twill Linen, 82 x 76

David French’s paintings evoke a kind of painterly ecstasy. These works knock the ball out of the park. Their large size tends to overwhelm the viewer in the context of their installation; it is difficult if not impossible to get far enough away from them to take them in one gaze. These tough, visceral works are painting with a capital "P", and deliver an emotional punch to the gut. These paintings engage beauty’s doppelganger, the sublime in their effect.

Thomas Lendvai, 2017

Thomas Lendvai’s sculpture provides a gripping experiential dialog within the confines of the gallery space. The work is comprised of sheets of painted MDF joined in a way that creates a paradoxical volume. The more the viewer tries to understand the form, the more elusive it becomes. It is impossible to get far enough away from the sculpture to take it in at one look, forcing the viewer to engage in a peripatetic engagement frustrating a simple comprehension of this sculpture despite the seeming simplicity of the form. This is highly effective work.

Cecile Chong, In A Different Light, 2011, Encaustic, 50 x 54

Cecile Chong engages beauty on the level of materiality and memory. Her encaustic paintings, densely layered with diverse ingredients, combine cultures, recollection, and personal history in a way that manages to be beautiful and poignant while avoiding sentimentality. These works seem to be telling a story that is like a dream that vanishes upon awakening, leaving only traces and hints of meaning.

Kathy Cantwell, The Hidden Life Of Stripes 12, 2016,
Encaustic, 24 x 36

Kathy Cantwell's paintings are comprised solely of stripes of color, executed in encaustic, and provide chromatic complexity within a reduced set of means. Encaustic proves a congenial medium for Ms. Cantwell’s explorations, giving the color a physicality without diminishing optical effect as color. It is to Ms. Cantwell’s credit that the reductive process she choses in no way limits the depth and complexity of the expressive content of these paintings.

Andra Samelson, Rhetoric for an Apparition, 2016,
Acrylic on Canvas, 30 x 30

Andra Samelson’s unabashedly beautiful paintings are evocative of tantric art, as well as a sense of the sublime as expressed in nature, namely the cosmos and its attendant vastness. Employing various tools, Ms. Samelson draws into the paint she has applied, resulting in a gestural presence that is improvisational and spontaneous. The paintings presented here are modest in size but large in scale, giving the impression that they could be much larger.

Patricia Fabricant, WSP 012017, 2017, Woven Gouache, 24 x 18

Patricia Fabricant’s work is a departure from her previous work, which is abstract and pattern-oriented. Here Ms. Fabricant presents vibrant self-portraits, which convey an immediacy and an emotional tenor which she attributes to recent events in the political arena. On one wall she has hung a series of self-portraits executed in gouache, which are highly expressionistic and confrontational. On the facing wall, Ms. Fabricant has cut similar paintings into strips and woven them together to create a new image, which recalls the original image, but presents a new fragmented reality. The emotions conveyed are shock, disbelief, anger, disgust, and a few others that are less readily identified.

Anne Trauben, Gap Between The Puddles, 2017, Oil Pastel on Paper, 56 x 44

Faced with the nearly impossible task of curating one’s own work, Anne Trauben wisely left the curatorial duties to James Pustorino for her participation in the show. Comprised of both sculpture and drawing, Ms. Trauben presents a profoundly beautiful body of work. Her drawings are not preparatory work for her sculptures but, rather, are strong works that stand alone. A deft hand with her materials lends a cohesion to her work that might otherwise suffer in its diversity. Aleatory process is a large part of Ms. Trauben’s work. Her large, wall-sized drawings combine intensity with chance operation. Included are works comprised of wire, which Ms. Trauben considers another form of line, as well as clay pieces both on and off the wall. A particularly moving work is “Constellation 1 (for Margaret)" composed of several dish like forms made of porcelain which are installed on the wall in what seem to recall a constellation or perhaps asteroids in space.

The divergent ideas of what might comprise beauty provide a lively and well-considered viewing experience. One can easily imagine each of these artists extending their artistic vision well beyond the limits of this show.

Bold and Beautiful, 3/10/17 - 4/8/17, at Drawing Rooms features installation, painting, sculpture, and drawing by Ben Pranger, David French, Jill Scipione, Thomas Lendvai, Cecile Chong, Andra Samelson, Patricia Fabricant and Anne Trauben. The exhibit is curated by Anne Trauben. 

Bruce Halpin is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Bruce's bio here and view his artwork here.

Introducing Nieuw Art Blog: Art on the Jersey Side

Beginning in the 1970's, visual artists pioneered Jersey City and created a contemporary cultural community. We sit on the shoulders of the artists and arts organizers in this area who preceded us.

The number of people writing about the arts in our area has dwindled. We started this blog to give local artists and arts writers an opportunity to activate a different part of their creative practice by reviewing fellow artist exhibitions. In turn, we created more opportunities for artists to help spread the word about what they were doing. 

We chose the name Nieuw Art Blog because it calls upon both the history of Dutch settlement in Jersey City. 

This blog, like many others, is a volunteer effort. If you are interested in being considered as an artist-writer, please check out this page.