Nine small paintings equal two years’ work for Louisiana artist Douglas Bourgeois-a pace that seems positively speedy when one encounters his meticulously rendered pieces at Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia St. Detailed and delicate as the interiors of watches, these panel paintings are testaments to obsessive craftsmanship and its power to capture the vivid obsessions of our dreams.
Few artists are willing to expose their souls on the very surface of their work. It takes extraordinary courage. Painter Robert Gordy (1933-1986), in the last years if his life, after a 30-year career ushered chiefly by a beautiful but emotionally harnessed style, had that courage. He also had the skill and intelligence to wield such a personal enterprise into something that would daunt no one, all the while ringing with authenticity. The consequence was a new unfettered posture and a new series of works – mostly portrait heads and mostly monotypes.
An exhibit of Lin Emery’s sculpture is always a rare treat, and her latest work, at Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia St., is no exception.
Visions are tricky things. Timing is all-important, it seems. For instance, no one had visions in the 1950s; it just wasn’t done. But by the late 1960s, people were having visions all over the place.
LAST MONTH, while the Contemporary Arts Center’s “Body Photographic” attempted nobly to survey the range of today’s camera artists working with the figure – the most traditional of subjects – some other galleries took on tradition too, but more generally. And their efforts seemed especially insouciant, as if traditionalism were as much the order of the day as any remnants of the avant-garde. In short, as if the distinction no longer mattered. It was an encouraging sight.
“The ‘Black Male’ show at the Whitney Museum is one of the liveliest and most visually engaging exhibitions to have appeared in New York this season…
Ida Kohlmeyer was a fine golfer and a 37-year-old mother of two with a businessman for a husband when she began studying art at Newcomb College in the 1950s.
If the term “works on paper” conjures images of intimately scaled art objects — from postage stamps to origami sculptures—then it’s time for you to visit Edward Whiteman’s splendid new installation of wall-sized mixed media drawings at Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia St.
My first big art experience was the Gertrude Stein portrait by Picasso at the Metropolitan when I was about eight. It was also my first big sex experience.
In the last ten years Jim Barsness has moved from the West Coast to the East Coast and back again. Nothing in his work seems to correspond obviously with these changes.