GIBSON CONTEMPORARY

THE PAINTINGS OF DEIRDRE SOLIN  There exist certain elements of painterly description which are so central to the rigor of artifice that they have flowed from one art form into all the rest, even into contemporary technology which allows us a further degree of reflection upon the idiosyncrasies of the natural world such as digital media. Such elements are so essential to the practice of art that we cannot imagine art not having them, nor a world that can be described without them. Most central among these is Color. Just to say the word itself is to speak volumes, while at the same time to be separated from adequate knowledge as needed to explore its capacity for meaning. In the paintings of Dee Solin we encounter an obsessive engagement with color that operates in the stylistic milieu of painters like Julian Stanczak, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alfred Jensen, and Bridget Riley. Each of these artists attended to color and structure not as naturally opposed aspects of the same experientia...

The contemporary artist, given a particular education and overall attitude toward what is considered historically important today, may struggle to communicate in terms that challenge them formally while at the same time addressing the need for a creative language. They may find themselves reacting to the scene overall or to specific artists who are lauded as the paradigmatic models for ‘quality’. In this situation, one expects to compete not for a position of mastery, or to produce a new generational legacy, but only to hold onto whatever degree of notoriety is bestowed upon them. Although genius is still a prized quality, it has become a quantifiable commodity, and not the ambiguous measure of idiosyncrasy that it once was. It becomes necessary for the artist of vision to look back upon art history for cues as to how to express oneself. In the case of Daniel Sewell, he chose Cubism as a creative language to reinvigorate a contemporary dialogue on form, esthetics, and the uses of ...

Pink Sky~North Shore c. 2050  (The Lessons of Rapa Nui), 2007 Oil on Panel, 45 x 56 inches If the need is pressing and the world is not forthcoming, then vision will dictate how the object of desire can be created (James Elkins, The Object Stares Back, pp 30-1). A picture is not only a view onto the world, or onto someone’s imagination: it is a peculiar kind of object that sets us thinking about desire…. Looking immediately activates desire, possession, violence, displeasure, pain, force, ambition, power, obligation, gratitude, longing…there seems to be no end to what seeing is, to how it is tangled with living and acting (Ibid).     It’s long been said, to the detriment of true understanding, that artists live outside of society; what artist really desire is to understand society. Once they have expressed this understanding in their work, they can begin to make their place in it. The recent paintings of Thomas Frontini are proof of this. T...

This is a complex question and it can be answered a number of different ways depending upon who is doing the talking. Ask an artist and they will invariably say: Why all the artists, of course! Ask someone else professional and they will say: Galleries and museums. Ask someone outside its observed boundaries, and they will say: Huh? These responses suggest the differences between many people in answering a question that can be defined variably. I tend to think of the art world as a complex community of individuals and companies which all fall in line behind the idea of art as a unifying and inspired context. How this results in relationships and power structures is another matter altogether. Each person in the art world must find the best way to navigate it to the best of their ability and sometimes they need help doing it. This is where I can be of assistance . In most cases, the situations one needs to surmount are ones I have experienced, or I know someone else who has, ...