surveying the shifting climate of painting in south floridaartandculturecenter.org/files/time+temp...
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Cover image: Craig Kucia, it was like the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs (detail), 2009, Oil on canvas, 54 x 54 in., Courtesy of the artist and Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Cleveland.
Left: Lilian Garcia-Roig, Hyperbolic Nature: Florida Vines, 2008, 5 x 8 ft., Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami.
Below: Guerra de la Paz, Carmen (from the series - Friends and Family), 2007, Acrylic on linen, 16 x 12 in., Courtesy of the artist and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami.
Participating Artists
Harumi Abe
Farley Aguilar
Kevin Arrow
Bhakti Baxter
Loriel Beltran
Pip Brant
David Brieske
Timothy Buwalda
Julie Davidow
Ivan Toth Depeña
Eugenio Espinosa
Lilian Garcia-Roig
Lynne Gelfman
Mike Genovese
Mark Gibson
Karen Starosta-Gilinski
Jacin Giordano
Francie Bishop Good
Aramis Gutierrez
Guerra de la Paz
Richard Haden
Jason Hedges
Craig Kucia
Natalya Laskis
Nicolas Lobo
Pepe Mar
Jordan Massengale
Raul Mendez
Beatriz Monteavaro
Gean Moreno
Daniel Newman
Glexis Novoa
Ray Olivero
Skot Olsen
Brandon Opalka
Ernesto Oroza
Perry Pandrea
Raul Perdomo
Gavin Perry
Vickie Pierre
Oliver Sanchez
Asser Saint Val
Diego Singh
Nancy Spielman
Alex Sweet
Runcie Tatnall
Kristen Thiele
Mette Tommerup
Kiki Valdes
Marcos Valella
Michael Vasquez
Agatha Wara
Chuck Webster
Michelle Weinberg
John Zoller
TIME + TEMP: Surveying the Shifting Climate of Painting in South Florida
Nov. 16, 2009 – Jan. 10, 2010Opening Reception: Fri., Nov. 20, 6 – 9 pm
This exhibition presents a survey of dynamic
work by a selection of South Florida-based
artists who embrace and incorporate aspects
of painting into their practice. A resurgence
of painterly tendencies is currently taking
hold among artists on a national and
international level. Its growing appeal is also
evident within our region’s ever-expanding
contemporary art community. On view is
work by approximately 50 artists who are
investigating and pushing the prevailing
definitions of painting. Boundaries of form
have been expanded through a variety
of techniques, utilizing a broad range of
materials. Some pieces have been created
specifically for this exhibit, yet are made
with media other than traditional pigment-
based paint on canvas. Representation and
abstraction continue to be very much at
the forefront of this genre. However, issues
which have dominated painterly themes
such as color, surface, narrative and gesture
are finding new expressions in a variety of
unconventional and energized styles. Our
tropical, lush, and organic environment,
intersected by gleaming architectonic towers
of light, glass, and concrete sets the stage
for fertile and flowing currents of invention,
which are reflected in this array of works.
The majority of pieces in the exhibition
feature some type of representational
imagery. That said, narrative and non-
narrative depictions of figures, structures,
nature, Pop iconography, and other forms
of representation vary dramatically. At
the heart of compelling canvases by Craig
Kucia, Harumi Abe, Raul Mendez, and
Aramis Gutierrez are moments that, while
narrative in nature, are isolated fragments
in non-linear story-telling. The viewer is
intended to bring their own associations and
memory to complete the open-ended plot.
Farley Aguilar, Asser Saint Val, and John
Zoller’s dramatically different aesthetics and
approaches each incorporate overarching
themes which dictate the nature of their
individual subject matter, characters,
environment, and the thread of continuity
that flows throughout their work. Myriad
forms of Pop Culture iconography and
imagery is embedded in the work of various
artists, including Beatriz Monteavaro’s
fascination with horror movie imagery, Kevin
Arrow’s brightly colored mandalas that
incorporate Mickey Mouse and other cartoon
characters, and both Kristen Thiele and
Oliver Sanchez’ individual reinterpretation of
vintage stock photography depicting bygone
eras. Masterfully gestural painting of people,
places, and things, in which the subject
becomes a vehicle for powerful flourishes
of brushwork, color, form, and line, are
embodied in the work of Lillian Garcia Roig,
Mette Tommerup, Michael Vasquez, Jordan
Massengale, Brandon Opalka, Timothy
Buwalda, and newcomers Runcie Tatnall and
Natalya Laskis.
“Painting” finds new form through
unconventional approaches and use of
unorthodox materials. One example of
this “out of the box” approach is Nicolas
Lobo’s site-specific mixed media piece Cereal
Pyramid. To make this work, Lobo utilized
crushed multicolored kid’s cereal combined in
a mixture with Elmer’s Glue that he applied
in an abstract geometric configuration
onto the gallery wall. Jason Hedges, whose
artistic practice is consistently fueled by
consumable substances like wine and food,
presents a minimalist composition made up
entirely of peppercorns—a commodity with
socio-political and historic significance. The
variation in color and texture of the pepper
dictates the painting’s surface. Gean Moreno
and Ernesto Oroza have collaborated on a
new series of site-specific installations made
of newsprint panels with abstract graphics
printed on them. The sheets of paper are
hung in a grid with the pattern’s repetition
creating a geometric design as a layer upon
which to place other work. Similarly layering
images over an extent field is Michelle
Weinberg’s Backdrop, a large-scale gouache
playfully simulating a three-dimensional
space upon which smaller paintings done in
the same style are hung.
Numerous other artists are further exploring
a wealth of diverse materials and inventive
approaches for their creation of painting.
Richard Haden has been producing a
series of painting/sculpture hybrids which
employ a combination of painstakingly
detailed processes to arrive at trompe l’oeil
depictions of mundane objects such as
refrigerator doors, fire extinguishers, and
random car parts. Meticulously carved from
wood, the perfectly proportioned forms
Above: Mark Gibson, Last Cave, 2009, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in., Courtesy of the artist and Twenty/Twenty Projects, Hialeah.
Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza, Taboid (Diagram) [with painting by Bhakti Baxter], 2009, Newspaper, shown installed as wallpaper.
Kristen Thiele, N & D, 2009, Oil on canvas, 39 x 44 in., Courtesy of the artist.
are then painted, often in industrial quality
metallic tones. The resulting pieces are
startling doppelgangers of urban detritus.
Pepe Mar makes a departure from his
signature use of intense, vibrant color in
Gold One, a shimmering golden assemblage
of abstraction and figuration combined to
emulate a Byzantine icon. In an inventive
turn about, Loriel Beltran has literally cut
and peeled the existing white paint off the
gallery wall and then placed it as a single
intact sheet onto a stretcher to be hung
where the paint removal was executed,
leaving the exposed drywall as a ghostly
presence beside the paint’s new incarnation.
When going back to the basics of pigment,
paint, and canvas, innovation has not waned.
Abstraction finds form through a variety
of styles. Julie Davidow’s sharp and prickly
fields of cool color, linear intersections, and
microscopic mutation elegantly grace the
canvas surface and at times virally sprawl
out of bounds onto the wall itself. Gavin
Perry masterfully embeds layers of painterly
statements into dense resin tableaux,
restrained and refined and then at times
marred and manipulated to conflate pristine
perfection and manic gesture. Jacin Giordano
embraces the physicality of paint itself.
His purely abstract works combine various
techniques that freeze the fluidity of paint,
its drips, blobs, layering, and plasticity. Paint
is his medium—manifesting in many forms
not always constrained by two-dimensional
surfaces. Raul Perdomo’s dizzyingly complex
compositions are webs of colorful, exploding
organic shapes, tendrils, and carefully
deliberate splatters. New York-based artist
Chuck Webster produced a series of paintings
while at Dan and Kathryn Mikesell’s
Fountainhead Residency in Miami during
June 2009. These biomorphic compositions
reflect the artist’s fascination with formal
elements and decorative motifs he finds and
isolates in images culled from art historical
sources. In this body of work, the verdant
tropical environment of the studio’s setting
had a significant impact on his approach.
Hybridization of process is also found in
combining mediums, such as Agatha Wara’s
Previous spread: Jason Hedges, Peppercorns #1, Peppercorns on panel, 2009, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the Artist.
Left: Pepe Mar, Gold One, 2009, Plaster, fabric, burlap on metal structure, Courtesy of David Castillo Gallery, Miami.
Above: Oliver Sanchez, Nunsmoke [“Truly the light is sweet...” (Ecclesiastes 11:7). But the “nuns” here are actors taking a break from filming. July 1959. Source: Hulton Getty Picture Collection], 2009, 48 x 72 in., Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist.
works, which derive their imagery from
aged microfiche film which has decayed and
corroded. She lifts and further distorts these
images through her unconventional displays.
Michael Genovese takes aluminum which
has a baked black enamel finish and deftly
etches all manner of detail and content into
it. In many of his works, viewers are invited
to interactively create their own images,
words, and patterns on these same pieces
using an array of sharp hand tools that are
attached for that purpose. Photographer
and painter Francie Bishop Good combines
both of these processes in works that show
representational scenes intersected by bright
strokes of color abstraction.
The possibilities of what painting can be at
this moment are as varied as the array of
styles evidenced within this exhibition. South
Florida as an art center doesn’t possess a
prevailing movement, theoretical approach,
or school of thought. It remains a fertile and
organic realm where most anything and
everything is fair game.
— Jane Hart, Curator of Exhibitions
Art and Culture Center of Hollywood
Left: Kevin Arrow, Four Weeping Mice, 1995-2009, Oil on wood, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist.
Richard Haden, Do Not Open Smell Or Taste, 2009, Painted wood, 12 x 11.5 x 6.5 in., Courtesy of Dorsch Gallery, Miami.
Chuck Webster, Buggin’ Out, 2009, Oil on panel, 16 x 16 inches, Courtesy of the artist and ZieherSmith, New York.
Below: Michelle Weinberg, Backdrop, 2008, Latex, acrylic, gouache, framed gouache paintings (dimensions variable) on paper, 66 x 154 in., Courtesy of the artist.
Right: Michael Vasquez, The Guarded Entry, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 in., Private collection.
Back cover: Michael Genovese, Hopes and Aspirations of Chicagoans in Transit (detail), 2008, Interactive engraving on aluminum w/ baked enamel finish, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist.
1650 Harrison StreetHollywood, FL 33020954. 921. 3274ArtAndCultureCenter.org
The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported in part by its members, admissions, private entities, the City of Hollywood, the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We welcome donations from all members of the community who wish to support our work.
Funding for the 09/10 visual arts season is provided in part by Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz, and a grant from Funding Arts Broward.
Gallery Hours: Mon – Sat, 10 am – 5 pm; Sun, noon – 4 pm. Gallery admission is $7 for adults; $4 for students, seniors and children ages 4 to 13; and free to Center members as well as children age 3 or younger with an adult. Complimentary parking.