print January 1990

Nigel van Wieck

In seeking to make feeling the basis of a new contemporary narrative art, Nigel van Wieck has developed a highly suggestive mode of image-making, one of patently seductive appeal. Working in a forthright, descriptive realist vein, the artist presents discreet glimpses of the private side of human relationships in this group of recent pastels. A keen observer of life, he bases the compositions partly on his own experiences. Yet van Wieck uses models, so his compositions also have a somewhat staged quality. Most of his work focuses on the themes of sex and romance.

American Landscape, 1989, has

print January 1990

Mary Ann Currier

Mary Ann Currier is one of the most daring and original figures in the field of contemporary realism. Working in recent years with the medium of oil pastel, she has developed the still life into a powerful vehicle of personal expression. Her ability to capture appearance with uncanny precision, using a style of meticulous rendering that is nevertheless highly gestural, gives her forms a tremendous vitality.

In her latest series of still lifes, Currier charges the element of viewpoint—the angle and scale of presentation—not only with the twin tasks of shaping space and framing the subject, but

print December 1989

“Techno-Metaphysics”

It seems a not-so-subtle indictment of the current market-oriented mind-set of the art world how much more attention is paid to Japanese art collectors than to Japanese artists. This situation was temporarily redressed by this show, which offered a fascinating look at the lively state of Japanese contemporary art through the work of five artists. According to curators, Sabu Kohso and William Chambers, the aim was to include artists representing “different styles and generations.” The title of the show signifies what for the curators is one of the most important commonalities underlying the

print December 1989

Stephen Antonakos

Stephen Antonakos revealed here the expressive capabilities of light, the most clear and evincible of elements and one that, during a career now spanning three decades, has served as the artist’s dominant concern. In the group of nine panels featured in this show, he demonstrated anew how light touches on the more mystical realms of mind and spirit. Antonakos has constructed different sized wood panels, each with fronts that have been either painted or covered with gold leaf. Light cast by neon tubes attached to the backs of the pieces appears to create luminous extensions of the actual physical

print November 1989

Stephanie Kirschen-Cole

In this exhibition of recent mixed-media collages, Stephanie Kirschen-Cole showed herself to be an artist who delights in the sheer physicality of the materials she employs. Using various kinds of paper, canvas, silk, dye, and pigment, she shows a distinct talent for creating objects with an exuberant air and evocative presence about them. However physically appealing the treatment of their surfaces might be, these works appeal equally to the mind’s eye.

Polaska/da Vinci, 1989, is one of a group of collages featuring stamps or fragments of envelopes. Here, the stamp issued by the Polish government

print November 1989

Ethel Schwabacher

Ethel Schwabacher, who died in 1984 and whose career has enjoyed increased recognition in recent years, was one of the visual poets of the Abstract Expressionist movement. A contemporary of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman, she was a painter with a bold and thrilling sense of color. As shown in the group of paintings from the ’50s that were featured in this show, Schwabacher was someone who knew how to seize upon the special power color has to suggest feeling. She did so by using color as an element to activate the surfaces of her oil canvases. Paintings such as Woman: Red

print October 1989

Seymour Fogel

This retrospective covering five decades in Seymour Fogel’s career revealed the artist’s grand passion for self-expression. Born in New York City in 1911, Fogel shared in the searching spirit of his generation. His progressive bent appeared early when, in 1933, he worked as an apprentice to Diego Rivera on the latter’s Rockefeller Center murals. His portrait of Frida Kahlo from this period, together with his drawings for murals, show Fogel’s mastery of the monumental style of realism popular in the ’30s and early ’40s. In a number of respects, the abstract vocabulary that Fogel developed in the

print September 1989

Susan Hambleton

In this display of recent paintings and related charcoals, Susan Hambleton gives striking expression to the poetic notion of nature as the sum and measure of all things in the universe. Inspired by a summer’s stay at MacDowell, the well-known artists’ and writers’ colony located in New Hampshire, these landscapes show keen sensitivity to what might be called the indivisible character of nature. Hambleton reveals how all-enveloping landscape can be. Each composition is one that fills our thoughts and feelings as it steals our eyes. In Thinking of You, 1988–89, a painting of a chair set in a wide

print September 1989

Joe Sweeney

Joe Sweeney has become known in contemporary realist art circles for his stunning depictions of the landscapes of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. He has a sharp eye for the beauty of nature, which he finds in quiet and tranquil scenes showing nature existing in deepest harmony with man. The world for him is a vital and inherently physical place; it is one in which the elements, the forces of nature, seem to manifest themselves in benevolent,and in many instances, highly cultivated forms. As shown in this group of recent landscapes, Sweeney’s vision is one that is capable of elevating

print Summer 1989

George Segal

In this show of recent works, George Segal succeeds in capturing the vast dimensions of the human spirit. Segal’s long-standing interest in confronting directly life’s more unfathomable aspects proved to be his point of departure from Pop art. While the gas stations and stores that provide the settings for his earlier sculptures do seem to have a Pop flavor about them, the plaster-cast people who populate them have always been quite another matter. By touching upon realism in such an eerie way, they disturb the viewer’s sense of reality. Segal’s vision has always had a universal aim, that of

print May 1989

Glenn Jampol

In his recent paintings, Glenn Jampol succeeds at creating a visual equivalent for both the prosaic and the ineffable experiences of life. He does so by dint of the power of his imagery. Each painting presents a kind of window onto the pictorial universe of form and color. Peering through this window makes demands, not only on the artist, but also on one’s own imagination. Jampol casts the viewer in the role of active participant by setting a high premium on subjectivity.

The pressures, stresses, and violations of contemporary urban life are evoked by the tightly packed composition of Manuel

print May 1989

Katsuhisa Sakai

The sculptures of Los Angeles-based artist Katsuhisa Sakai are made mostly of pieces of wood cut into a variety of geometric shapes and joined together almost like building blocks. These freestanding constructions have more than a touch of mystery about them. Sakai shows a true gift for imbuing abstract form with multiple layers of meaning, working within the challenging realm of what I wish to call the “articulate object.” He creates a dynamic synthesis from a number of ordinarily opposing tendencies. The individual compositions have eccentric appearances and strong personages. The rambling

print April 1989

Ronni Bogaev

In this series of works inspired by a recent trip to Scotland, Ronni Bogaev reveals a keen ability to capture life’s more vital and alluring aspects. With photos and sketches of actual places serving as a starting point, Bogaev builds her compositions around selected motifs. She will frequently include a detail derived from her daily surroundings, a home and studio in southern Florida. In leaving herself free to alter reality, as it were, she creates a world in which fact and fiction, illusion and appearance, function as integrated elements in a synthetic but seamless universe. Each painting is

print March 1989

Jamie Wyeth

As the son of Andrew Wyeth and grandson of N.C. Wyeth, Jamie Wyeth is heir to his family’s style of tight, meticulous rendering. This is a legacy that, far from rejecting, he reinvests with considerable vitality. Take the farm scenes that are a famous staple of his father’s repertory. The younger Wyeth often presents an offbeat point of view in his versions of the subject. In Kinzer of Point Lookout, 1988, he creates an impressive portrait of a black ram. The animal stepping out from a thicket of sunflowers into an open grassy area is the embodiment of pride, with his prancing pose and puffed-up

print March 1989

Kathryn Freeman

In this show of recent paintings, Kathryn Freeman reveals how it is still possible to capture the awe-inspiring sides of human experience in one’s art without falling into the pit of self-consciousness that is the bane of so many of the figurative artists working with symbolic intents. Freeman demonstrates a visionary power and passionate poetic drive in her work; she finds meaning in even the most ordinary occurrences. Inspired by her observations of everyday events, Freeman seamlessly brings together commonplace and fantastic elements. Her pictures engender astonishment; they come across as

print February 1989

Doriana Chiarini

Just when one might be tempted finally to join up with the cynics and agree that Yes, there is nothing even remotely of interest left to say regarding the relationship between art and design, along comes a show such as this. Featuring recent sculptures by Doriana Chiarini, it confirms my faith in the powers of the imagination, transcending the mundane and mostly tendentious efforts that seem to have prevailed lately in this admittedly complex arena. With refreshing directness, Chiarini strips away the veneer of didacticism covering both notions of art-as-commodity and design-as-sign. She does

print February 1989

Michael Torlen

These landscapes were inspired by the yearly summer visits Michael Torlen makes to the Mount Desert Island area along the Maine coastline. In seeking to capture the special charms of this region, he joins the ranks of illustrious American artists who also “did” Maine, among them Winslow Homer, John Marin, and Marsden Hartley. Torlen, however, follows a fiercely independent course. The style he employs in this group of oils, watercolors, and monoprints is far more realistic than that used in his “Revelations” and “Genesis” series of 1984–85. While those landscapes were conceived almost entirely

print January 1989

Elizabeth Dworkin

Elizabeth Dworkin is a passionate painter, an artist thoroughly in touch with the powers of visual imagination and the special challenges they present. Working in a style that is poised on the edge between abstraction and figuration, she reconstitutes reality in the highest creative terms. M.G.M, 1988, conveys an atmosphere of bright lights, feverish activity, and intense sensual stimulation, offset by a sense of loneliness and exclusion from the ongoing drama. With its dynamic scaf-foldlike composition and synthesis of representational and abstract elements, the painting seems to express the

print January 1989

Philippe Vandenberg

Belgian artist Philipe Vandenberg reveals in his work a keen understanding of the importance of poetic suggestion. His paintings come across as objects infused with a special energy, and they yield a strong expressive impact. There is more to these active, multilayered surfaces than their complex interplay of color and form and their striking structural integrity. While they are essentially abstract—in this case, involved in the dynamic union of process and perceptual product—the manifold associations they evoke help them to elude the cocoon of overt formalism. Vandenberg succeeds in creating

print December 1988

Leigh Palmer

Leigh Palmer is among the best of the current crop of talented American realists at giving a vivid sense of place. As much about a specific mood and special moment as some particular locale, the scenes described in his recent paintings offer the viewer vistas for steady contemplation. Palmer, who lives and works near Plymouth, Massachusetts, creates work that provides a subtle commentary on the relationship between society and nature in the towns and small communities of New England. Concentrating on corners of rooms, he depicts parts of the house that afford views onto nature. The paintings

Ronny Cohen