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Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai |
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NEW TRACES OF THE BRUSH
CALLIGRAPHY AND
PAINTING BY ANDRÉ KNEIB
APRIL 12 - MAY 14, 2009
André Kneib's ink and acrylic
calligraphy and landscape paintings (2005-2009) will be on
view at Contrasts Gallery from April 12-May
14, 2009.
To Kneib, Chinese characters are his life. He has been
studying and journeying with them for over thirty years
between France and China. He writes: "They open doors wide and
offer so many unexpected encounters...Witnesses of an instant,
they succeed in carrying within their completeness all and
every moment of our life." Having immersed himself in Chinese
culture and language, calligraphy is an extension of the
artist. The journey often begins with a single Chinese
character inspired by a feeling or experience. Kneib
approaches the character from a cross-cultural perspective,
combining Chinese and European elements. Influences range from
work by 17-18th century Chinese calligrapher Zhu Da to 20th
century abstract painter Hans Hartung, a leader of the art
informel movement.
Kneib infuses traditionally monochromatic Chinese
characters with colour using lyrical abstraction coupled with
Chinese calligraphy techniques. The characters come to life
when the pigmented brush connects with the paper. The varying
pressure and movement of his brushstrokes express the artist's
emotional and physical engagement with his subject. A myriad
of emotions can be conveyed in a single stroke, drawing
audiences into an infinite realm of possibilities. Mysterious
(2006) captures the inner essence of the word, while
challenging its viewer with its multidimensional undertones.
Kneib's works are engaging, even to those unacquainted with
Chinese characters.
Also on show will be landscape paintings inspired by the
grasslands of the artists' hometown of Puberg in
Alsace-Lorraine. Kneib applies the same calligraphic
principles as his Chinese characters to these highly gestural
works, incorporating the surrounding blank space of the paper
into the dynamic of the piece. He writes that the influence of
the Chinese characters are there "when the wind is blowing,
when the lightning is cutting through our heavy summer nights,
when the hoarfrost is sparkling on the moss on grey winter
mornings". The same poetic sentiments that he expresses in
words are captured by each brushstroke.
Kneib's works truly embody the "three perfections" of
Chinese art: painting, poetry, and calligraphy. He melds
traditions with modernity from the East and West to reveal new
traces of the brush.
Originally from the French region of Alsace-Lorraine,
André Kneib (b. 1952) divides his time
between France and China, where he studied traditional Chinese
calligraphy at the University of Nanjing and the Central
Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. He has exhibited
internationally, including solo exhibitions at the National
Art Museum (China), International House (Japan), Musée
Champollion (France), and the Taipei Museum of Fine Arts
(Taiwan).
Image:
André Kneib
Han, 2006
Ink and
acrylic on Canson paper
48 x 36 cm
© André Kneib,
courtesy of Contrasts Gallery
Contrasts Gallery
No. 181 Middle Jiangxi Road,
G/F
Shanghai
China 200002
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Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los
Angeles |
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EDWARD WALTON WILCOX
RECENT WORK
April 25 - May 23, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday,
April 25, 2009, 8-11pm
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6 pm
Merry Karnowsky Gallery is proud to
present a solo exhibition by artist Edward Walton
Wilcox. Wilcox's sepia-toned gothic paintings and
Medieval-style altarpieces merge classical technique with
modern perception.
Wilcox's haunting paintings of young blond girls and
landscapes of beauty and impeding disaster are seeped in
symbolic context. Warm umbers accentuated with subtle flesh
tones are achieved through a series of burnishing and glazing
techniques, giving the work a shadowy depth seldom seen since
the Illuminists of the 1800's.
While Wilcox's paintings reference the highly
romanticized past of previous centuries, his constructions
evoke religious iconography dating back to the beginning of
mankind's search for salvation. A carved wooden altarpiece of
Noah's Ark includes sea dragons and black birds circling its
gothic spires. The back room of the exhibition is transformed
into a snowy winter's day, with a full-size wagon carrying a
simple wooden coffin.
Art critic Shana Nys Dambrot says, "Edward Walton Wilcox
manifests an unforgettable hybrid vision. His work is torn
between the edgy urban modernism of his real-time generation
and the chestnut-toned embrace of Medieval and Renaissance
glazes, depicting a pastoral, God-fearing world. Whether
allowing a cheeky wit and dark humor to infiltrate cozy
representations of farms and valleys, or constructing
elaborate altarpieces dedicated to the worship of mystery and
omen, Wilcox merges styles and mythologies to moving
effect."
The artist explains, "My work is a moral critique of a
world attempting to shroud itself in beauty and diversion in
the midst of its own collapse. My intention is for the work to
have a preternatural effect on the viewer; evoking at times a
sense of awe, terror, insignificance, romantic sensuality,
allusions to our self-destructive nature, the temporal nature
of beauty and life, and the decay of the material world as a
constant of which we are always aware."
Originally from West Palm Beach, Florida, Wilcox earned a
BFA in Painting with high honors from the University of
Florida, where he also received the Presidential Award for
Excellence in the Arts.
Wilcox's work has shown in California, New York, Florida,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and has appeared in publications
such as The LA Times, Juxtapoz, Coagula Art Journal
and FLAUNT Magazine.
Image:
Edward Walton Wilcox, A Stones Throw from
Paradise, 2009
bitumen on canvas
32 x 36 in
© Edward
Walton Wilcox, courtesy of Merry Karnowsky Gallery
Merry Karnowsky Gallery
170 South La
Brea Avenue
(In the ART 170 Building)
Los Angeles, CA
90036
+1 323 933 4408
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Galerie Jaeger Bucher, Paris |
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MICHAEL BIBERSTEIN
Silent
Resonance
27 March to 2 May 2009
The Gallery is pleased to present from March 27th to
May 2nd 2009 the first Parisian one-person show entitled
Silent Resonance by Swiss artist Michael
Biberstein which will include ten paintings and a
dozen of works on paper from 1983 to 2009 as well as an
acoustic installation realised by the artist for the
exhibition.
The paintings of Michael Biberstein speak of spaces
rather than concrete landscapes. They take their source in the
European tradition of landscape painting - evoking landscapes
of Vernet Caspar David Friedrich, Turner or Monet as much as
some oriental landscapes of various Chinese dynasties. These
works are like « seeing machines », landscapes of a defined
moment for an intemporal vision and a specific sensation in an
infinite space, indicating the presence of an existence beyond
physical space. They are as much cosmological paintings
located beyond the context of space and time as the inner
landscapes of our sensations and thoughts, allowing us to deal
with metaphysical questions which can't be spoken of ; the
absence of contours can evoke a form, the flux of colours
changes continuously according to the light, either as a
vibration on the surface of the canvas or an emanation coming
from within the thin successive layers of acrylic just as
chromatic scales would do. The atmosphere of the painting,
playing either its attracting or expanding role, is
positioning us in a space where the physical and temporal are
greater than we are ; it is thus not surprising that the
titles of the works have to do with terminologies borrowed
from physics and electrodynamics such as Gliders, Attractors,
Compressors, Accelerators, the Big Wide etc...
Since the origin, Michel Biberstein develops his research
on space and colour in a scientific manner; his pictorial
spaces have more to do with architecture than pure landscapes
- especially with their large formats - allowing him to
explore the perceptive and physiological effects that colour
and form have on the observer. His research on colour
perception and the use of light lead to these colour-spaces
where the shades of colours, blended into each other, create
the visual effect of a chromatic breathing thus provoking an
impression on the observer. These experimentations on colour,
light and form resemble James Turrell's and it is not
surprising to know that the collector Donald Hess, who is
presently dedicating an individual museum to Turrell in
Estancia Colomé in Argentina, will also dedicate a private
museum to Michael Biberstein in 2010/2011.
The sound installation realised by Michael Biberstein for
this exhibition is not an acoustic illustration of his
paintings but, rather, a contribution to reinforce and sharpen
certain aspects of his work.
Michael Biberstein was born in
Solothurn, Switzerland in 1948. He lived in the States where
he studied art history with David Sylvester before becoming a
self-taught painter. His past important exhibitions include
Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic ; Serralves Museum,
Porto; Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal ; Tallinn Art
Hall, Estonia; Elmhaus Zurich, Switzerland; Kunsthaus St.
Joseph, Solothurn, Switzerland;
The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual
catalogue in French/ English with an introductory text by
Véronique Jaeger as well as an interview of the artist
realised by Doris von Drathen ; colour reproductions of the
paintings and works on paper as well as a full biography and
bibliography of the artist.
Image:
Michael Biberstein, Blue Glider, 2007
Acrylic on
canvas
78,7 x 126 inches
© Michael Biberstein, Courtesy of Galerie Jaeger
Bucher, Paris
GALERIE JAEGER BUCHER
5 & 7 rue
de Saintonge
75003 Paris
France
+33 (0) 1 42 72 60
42
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Standpoint Gallery, London |
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Painting is Thinking...
Anne Gathmann and Kysa
Johnson
17 April - 16 May 2009
Opening Thursday 16 April
6-9pm
Gallery talk: Friday 17th April 6.30pm - the artists in
conversation with artist and RA lecturer Vanessa Jackson
Painting is Thinking... presents two
artists for whom painting is a direct means by which to
understand the world (internal and external) more closely -
scientifically, emotionally, and intellectually. The
techniques employed and the marks made result from the
artists' researches into the invisible world.
Anne Gathmann (DE) works in painting and
in site-specific installation. Key to her practice is giving
substance (or an illusion of substance) to the ephemeral and
unseen. Where her delicate interventions into public spaces
attempt to foreground aspects of a given space that are not
immediately apparent, her paintings give form to a subjective
inner space.
Gathmann floods sheets of paper with wet paint till they
wrinkle and rebel against their two dimensions. Displayed
either in closely related series, or taped together to
construct what become sculptural wall hangings, the individual
pieces are always engaged in a broader conversation. Her soft
forms - semi biomorphic, evocative of bodies, pillows, or
growing things, are sunk in the warp and weft of the
undulating surface. Other more geometric pieces begin to
suggest the tessellations of fabric hanging, the wave of flags
and banners, and seem celebratory and extrovert by comparison.
Anne Gathmann was born in 1973 and lives
and works in Berlin. She is represented by Stedefreund,
Berlin, where her solo show In the misty rain, mount Fuji is
veiled all day, how intriguing, took place in 2008. Other
projects include NN at Institut im Glaspavillon der
Volksbühne, Berlin, 2007, and Affirmation, m&n, Berlin
(solo) in 2006.
Kysa Johnson (USA) employs scientific
elements and theories to make conceptual reinterpretations of
traditional painterly subjects. Using specific microscopic
forms - ie the shapes of bacteria which act as diseases and
their cures, or the molecular structure of pollutants - as the
building blocks of her mark-making, Johnson refers the
microcosmic to the macrocosmic, and encourages us to step out
of our habitual view and perceive these tiny creatures as
phenomena to be appreciated on their own terms. She revels in
the inherent complexity of our ecosystem.
In the series Landscape/Pollutant, Johnson's versions of
utopian landscapes (largely from the Hudson River School) are
composed of the varying molecular structures of the
environmental pollutants ethane, methane, propane, hexane,
benzene, and acrolein. In the series Battle/Disease/Cure,
Uccello's groundbreaking Battle of San Romano (c 1450) is
painted using the chemical 'signatures' of Plague virus and
its cure - streptomyces. Working in ink, watercolour and
graphite in her paintings, Johnson also makes intensely
beautiful and detailed site specific works in chalk on
blackboard paint. For Standpoint, Johnson will display new
paintings based on Constable's views of Hampstead Heath,
alongside a newly commissioned wall drawing.
Kysa Johnson was born in Illinois in
1974, and trained at Glasgow School of Art. She iives and
works in New York. Solo projects include upcoming at Roebling
Hall gallery, New York, Autumn 2009, and the National Academy
of Sciences in Washington, DC, 2004. Her work is on permanent
display at the Empire State Building.
Images:
Anne Gathmann
Something which shows up
2008
Acrylic and ink on paper
238 x 147cm
© Anne Gathmann, courtesy of Standpoint
Gallery
Kysa Johnson
Blow-up 68 (Battle1) Disease and
cure - plague and streptomyces after Uccello
2007
Watercolour and graphite on board
124 x 244cm
© Kysa Johnson, courtesy of Standpoint Gallery
Standpoint Gallery
45 Coronet
Street
N1 6HD
London
+44 207 739 4921
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Maureen Paley, London |
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David Ratcliff
Apr 17 - May 24, 2009
Maureen Paley is pleased to present
David Ratcliff's first solo exhibition at the
gallery. For the past several years Ratcliff, who is based in
Los Angeles, has worked on a painting project, using handmade
stencils and spray-paint as tools for rendering chaotic, yet
casual, seemingly untouched surfaces. Over time, Ratcliff's
paintings have moved towards abstraction from their initially
figurative roots.
Abstraction has begun to occupy a dominant position in
David Ratcliff's work, as the visual noise that crept into his
earlier narrative pictures mutates into the central
structuring presence. The series of paintings entitled Mirror
began with recognisable images, which were then cut and
re-combined into compositions where the images become largely
unreadable. These forms are then reflected as an immediate way
to bring order to the composition. The results resemble
Rorschach tests where dark forms reveal themselves over
time.
DR: The paintings begin as digital collages I put
together using images that are nearly always gathered from
online sources. For the first show, an influence on the work
would be the wording - the parameters I would choose to
dictate the image-search results, usually a single noun:
pure-breed, platinum, stereo-remote, collage, bong. The
somewhat stark limitation and focus on multiple examples of a
single type of thing reduced the kinds of relationships within
the paintings, creating a psychologically flat space. More
recently, the bulk of the material I've gathered has been by
way of random image result pages with no keyword input.
Without placing language constraints on the search parameters,
I find photographs or whole groups of pictures I could not
have anticipated, and this has supported the work as the
paintings have grown more "painterly" over time and I've
become more willing to render images as nearly
unreadable.
BN: What are some of the unexpected images that have come
up in these searches?
DR: What ends up being really unexpected is often that
which would be most difficult to categorize. I'll get a group
of vacation photos from some family and one will have
something that really works in a way that isn't exactly one
thing or another. You have to sift. Of course I'll also run
into more specific material, like a photo of a noose with an
American flag attached to the top and a handwritten sign
reading "for sale swing set", or a group of kindergarten kids
finger-painting, or scanned pages from some personal notebook,
or a guy with his front teeth carved to read "2006," and this
might inspire a more targeted search for similar images.
BN: You were talking about how the paintings are
made...
DR: After the collage is assembled, it's printed onto
sheets of standard office paper which are then combined to
create what is essentially one large sheet of paper the size
of the canvas I intend to use. I cut the image out with an
X-Acto knife and then re-assemble it on the surface of the
canvas, creating the mask. The final step in most cases is
then to use spray-paint to apply the image. The process is one
of a gradual loss of control and step-by-step detachment. When
I'm putting the image together with a select group of images,
single-pixel changes can be made, and each stage afterwards
introduces chance/accident to a greater degree, ending with
the damage and curling of the paper stencil, and pieces
falling off the canvas sometimes obscuring or sticking to
parts of the image.
from David Ratcliff with Bob Nickas in David Ratcliff:
Defect's Mirror, 2008
For this exhibition, Ratcliff aligns himself with two
very disparate fiction generators - Paul Klee and J.G.
Ballard. The power of fiction to envelope a reader was key to
Ratcliff's choice of those figures as sources of inspiration
for these new paintings. Ratcliff states, "It is interesting
to me to join Klee and Ballard in my mind. There is something
intimate and almost loving about Klee's works and there is
something vulgar and hateful about Ballard's "spinal
landscapes" that are in contrast to one another, yet somehow
sit together as well. Maybe that's because they share a stance
in relation to the present. And they are both silent, Ballard
like concrete and Klee like sleep. When thinking of this numb
matter-of-fact silence in Ballard and the nocturnal
"primitive" silence of Klee, I see these new paintings as
having a similar soundless quality, containing fear. Like
drowning, but not so animated."
Previous solo exhibitions include Defect's Mirror, Team
Gallery, New York, 2008, and Galerie Rodolphe Janssen in 2007.
In 2008 Ratcliff was also included in The Hidden, Maureen
Paley, London and That was then... This is now at PS1, New
York, as well as I Love My Scene: Scene Two (curated by José
Freire), Mary Boone Gallery, New York and New Paintings from
L.A., Peres Projects, Berlin, both in 2006.
Image:
David Ratcliff, Landscape
2009
acrylic and spray-paint on canvas
84 x 72 in 213.4
x 182.9 cm
© David Ratcliff, courtesy of Maureen Paley,
London
MAUREEN PALEY
21 Herald
Street
London
E2 6JT
+44 (0) 20 7729 4112
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