Following on from the inaugural exhibition “Unprecedented” (online) Gallery Gary Giordano, is presenting “Painters and Painting” at Artsy.net.
Closing June 20, 2021, this exhibition calls to our attention the practice of painting. I’ve known Gary for a few years now, and to say he is interested in these processes would be an understatement. It's a varied group of artists and the works cover many different ways of painting as well having disparate influences.
Joel Adas, paints so directly, and gets light-filled space, horizon and weather in just a few strokes. Look for Sunset 1, to see this and the landscape.
Darren McManus’ paintings call on scientific principles and theories, and the result is exceptionally complex and beautifully composed works. The compositions dictate the unique and irregular shapes as well.
I enjoy Robert Zurer’s Landscape 42, which for me has some Georgia O’Keeffe influence. There is a balance to this painting as well, and it differs from the others in this exhibition.
Sophia Chizuco’s Stardust from 2019, uses pattern and repetition to create a painting that while based on views from a flight, creates the sense of airiness, or oxygen as well.
Bill Page’s works might be the epitome of this exhibition’s string. Based on the light, colors and architecture of Mexico, his works are purely paint, surface and color. Basilica Guanajuato embodies this physicality of painting.
Alice Zinnes’ paintings are inspired by poetry and the written word and result in spectacular surface, shadow, and depth. Abstract painting might fall away for you as some landscape or other imagery come into your view. Looming Edge of Black, 2020, does that for me.
Born in Conflict, 2021, by Mark Rosenthal, is a beautiful work that has a sense of motion which is difficult to successfully capture in a painting. Birth and figurative imagery is present amongst some terrific scraped and pulled painting.
Olga Alexander has given us some well balanced and complementary color choices in Passion Fruit, 2020. The line weight of the black paint takes me toward figurative drawing. Successfully I think, as Olga calls out landscape as the subject.
I mentioned to Kellyanne Hanrahan recently that developing a technique that is new and unique in painting is extremely difficult. Painting on found objects such as rope-covered board in People Being Outside 72, 2020, she is able to deftly illustrate detailed figurative imagery on what surely must be an unforgiving surface.
Gary Giordano is also a very direct painter, and these paintings of skulls are just that. The direct and layered technique, lends itself well to the depiction of bone. Particularly true in the work Face of Covid, from 2020.
And I painted two canvases specifically for this exhibition; and that deadline served me well to get my studio up and running at full steam.
Jeff Evans
Visit the exhibition here: https://www.artsy.net/show/gallery-gary-giordano-painters-and-painting