ARTISTS TO SEE IN APRIL 2015

 

ANGEL OTERO

Angel Otero (b. 1981, Puerto Rico) is a painter inspired by expressionistic abstraction, personal history and Spanish Baroque tradition. His work ranges from the abstract to semi-representative and his work is all process-based. His innovative process of oil-paint scraping is a work of art in itself: he "de-forms" the work, first across glass and then flays the paint once dry to reconstruct the composition across large canvasses. This process is representative of how Otero perceives the process of reconstructing personal and historical narratives. His pieces are vibrantly colored and monochromatic.  

   

Angel Otero, He was the Torpedo. She was the Target, 2015

Some of Otero's latest work is currently on view through May 9, 2015 in a solo show titled Lago at Kavi Gupta Gallery in Chicago. 
 
 
 

KELLEY WALKER 

Kelley Walker (b. 1969, Columbus, Georgia) is a post-conceptual artist who often uses digital media, screen printing and iconic cultural images as a means for political and social commentary. Walker's latest project, using bricks to create a large-scale painting, results in something of an illusion, as each 10-foot piece appears to be both a brick wall and a variation of an abstract grid. He first scans individual bricks, then stacks them and silkscreens them using a four-color process. Walker has said, "I think of the canvas as having a mimetic relationship not only to the wall the work might be displayed on, but also to the structure of the bricks and cinder blocks in the urban cityscape of New York. Outside my studio window, I see various ways these building materials are used - structurally as well as decoratively, stacked both horizontally and vertically."

   

Kelley Walker, Untitled, 2014 

Twelve of Walker's recent brick paintings are currently on view at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York through April 18, 2015. 

 

ALEX BROWN

Alex Brown (b. 1966, Des Moines, Iowa) is a painter who combines realism and abstraction to create visually compelling images. His paintings appear abstract up close, but come into focus from a distance. He often works from found photographs of everyday things like office buildings, landscapes, portraits and still lifes, and then transforms them through patterned abstract shapes. His interest is in the illusion, as he takes a once-recognizable image and challenges the viewer to see it anew. His work has been compared to Victor Vasarely and Georges Seurat. 

  
 Alex Brown, Pilgrim, 2012

Brown's work is currently included in the group show The Painter of Modern Life at the Anton Kern Gallery in New York City on view through April 11, 2015. 



  

CHRISTINE FRERICHS

Christine Frerichs (b. 1979, Los Angeles) focuses on memory, relationships and the construction of personal identity, as expressed through her abstract painting.  Her latest exhibition centers around a series of paired canvases layered with thick oil paint, acrylic and wax, using subtle, bold, light and dark colors, and curving textured lines which ripple across each of their surfaces.  These formal qualities describe an abstracted representation of two figures, and the visceral experience of different landscapes as they relate to the physical and emotional self.  Standing in front of works that at first appear abstract, one has the sense of gazing into open fields of flickering light and color, reminiscent of the sky and water at different times of day and night. 

  
 Christine Frerichs, On Love (for Agnes Martin), 2015

Frerichs' most recent paintings are on view at Klowden Mann Gallery in Los Angeles through April 11, 2015.

 

 

SHARON HAYES, TONY LEWIS, ADAM PENDLETON

Currently on view at Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York is an exhibition by Sharon Hayes, Tony Lewis and Adam Pendleton. The exhibit explores the relationship between the use of language and the formal and social implications of abstraction. Tony Lewis' included work is a large graphite paper diptych that exhibits Lewis' interrogation of language systems. 

 
 Tony Lewis, Time After Time, 2015

Adam Pendleton's included work -- a painting from his body of work "Black Dada" as well as a work from a series layering text and images on mirrored stainless steel -- gives form to his interest in the idea of a mutable and subjective history with infinite narrative potentials. 

  

Adam Pendleton, Harvest - 3000 Years, 2014-2015

Sharon Hayes presents two works, each a fragment from a banner carried in the Women's Strike for Equality on August 26th, 1970, that said "WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE!".
 

Sharon Hayes, [W]OMEN, 2015

The show is on view through April 25, 2015 in Rosen's Gallery 2 space.

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