fragrance

   engender, 2012, watercolor, mulberry paper, epoxy, 36 x 36"

M I K E   S O L O M O N

Returning to the Mark

Salomon Contemporary

 

"Art does not have to address beauty -- to reach for beauty. But it sure is great if it does."

Peter Schjeldahl, 2005, in conversation with Neal Benazra, director SFMOMA, Wattis Theater 

Mike Solomon's new paintings hover between subject and object with an irresistible, melt-in-your-mouth translucence. Their fleeting visuals -- soft, commingling bars of color that float in deep space -- seem to colonize in an effort to elude definition, but they flirt at the edges of actual moments, coalescing and pulling apart within small poetries of memory, awareness and redolence. Something akin to what the mystics call "fragrance."

Now on view at Salomon Contemporary, selected paintings and sculpture from three distinct bodies of work, each an examination of fluid grids, wave patterns, hyperbolic planes and a sort of painter's mindfulness, in this, the artist's first solo show in New York City.

memoria de Seville, 2012, watercolor, mulberry paper, epoxy, 36 x 36"

Sitting across from these paintings in his East Hampton studio last week, Solomon shared some thoughts about process, optics, Impressionism and painting.

"When I was working out memoria de Seville, I just kept thinking to myself -- this color is so familiar -- what is it? And then it hit me -- it was Seville, where I visited once in the 70s. It was just so familiar."

The redolence conjured in these paintings exists on a number of other levels, too. They ricochet between reminiscences of Bradley Walker Tomlin, Paul Klee, minimalism and various Cubist idioms and then bounce to the more specific -- like layers of hard candy, koi ponds or coconut jello. Solomon's interests are wide ranging, but with this body of work he dives into the tenets of early Impressionism -- "the beginning of everything," he said -- as the optic brain helped launch the modernist era. 

Like most studio processes, Solomon's is relatively unglamorous. With watercolor, he paints modest shapes across mulberry paper and then layers resin on each sheet, addressing the pages one by one. There are a lot of basics -- sanding, peeling, adjusting -- along the way, but as the paper and resin accumulate into thickness, a sort of hallucinatory grid begins to emerge. 

"In some ways I'm working blind," said the artist, "from front to back. The process is about aggregating things --my response is intuitive -- I don't ever know 
exactly how it will end."

For the artist, who is working in the reverse throughout this process, the results are often a complete surprise. Color and form gradually pool into luminous, milky squares. The elements unify into a solid -- like melted sugar -- and the paintings look almost edible, as if one could lick the content from their surface. The resulting imagery is magically diffuse.

detail

Solomon has talked about this often -- the way things coalesce -- and the events that shape the outcome. These things are at the core of his work. Of his fascination with water, he has spoken about the "fact" of waves as a place where something happens in the x and y grid -- an event, if you will. To this end, his focus has been undeterred throughout some thirty years of art making. Driven by action rather than reverie, Solomon's work is often referential but non-specific, like breath on the back of the neck.

"The past is an aggregate of the present -- it's still 
there -- to me, it's a more accurate model of reality."

The Bombora, 1979, (Isla Vista, March 3, 12:00), watercolor on paper, 6 1/2 x 9 1/2"

In a series of early watercolors the artist captured reefs, water flow and wave action in small works that examine the subtle coloration and movement of the ocean -- a big subject. The Bombora, 1979, is titled for a surfing term (a term coined in Australia, now used worldwide) that describes large waves breaking over a shallow area in the sea. 

Petalon, 2008-10, nylon net, epoxy, fiberglass, tints, 33 x 44 x 14"

 
The confluence of events that generally makes this a dangerous wave also makes it a Bombora, which is an attractive "event" for surfers. Such an event is what Solomon refers to as that "x and y place" in the grid. It's a cool and precise way of describing the indescribable. He locates that activity -- something he knows well after years of surfing and fishing -- in sculptural works in which fluid planes are torqued into form, their content as ephemeral, yet specific, as his paintings.

through the garden, through the gate, 2012, watercolor, mulberry paper, epoxy, 36 x 36"

"It's sort of like reducing memory to a molecular 
level -- you see previous things, pentimentos of things."

And so, contained in Solomon's grid work are the moments, memories and the small poetries that function at the edges of actuality. That subtle piercing into the fabric of memory is one of the mainstays of his oeuvre.

detail, Bolster, 2008

His blog, All the Work I've Ever Done, is crazy in that way. It's literally a blow by blow account of Solomon's considerable experience in the art world, from both coasts to Florida and beyond.

Panta rhei, 2008

"Art, you know, it's messy. As much as that is abstract, it's hard to get away from the fact of memory."

To be clear, Solomon is not waxing nostalgic, he's speaking more of the physiological properties of memory -- the mnemonic and cognition, optics, neuroscience and the visual brain -- as if moments in time could be spliced paper-thin.





 
 On view at Salomon Contemporary 
though November 17 -- don't miss 
this glimpse at a rare hybrid of 
structure, memory 
and fragrance.

world within a world

Unknown Control Over Country's Horse Power, 2010, hand ground mineral pigments w/gum arabic, 8 x 6"

Raja Ram Sharma
Contemporary Paintings from Rajasthan

at The Drawing Room 

One of the best things about the age we live in is its cross culturalism. In the arts, the world is wider -- more egalitarian -- and infinitely more interesting than it was 20 years ago. Fingertip communication has changed everything, with smartphones and the internet helping to level the playing field across the globe. We stand more shoulder to shoulder now, and our perception of contemporary art is that much more broad, allowing cultural exchange that inspires a new sort of camaraderie, appreciation and awe. 

Enter Raja Ram Sharma, master temple painter and contemporary artist whose intimate, sacred, fantastical works are currently on view at The Drawing Room in East Hampton. Whether you're a painter, collector, art world devotee or simple phenomenologist, you must see this exhibition. Bring your readers, because the level of intrigue in these small works requires observation skills of the keenest order.

Independent, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 x 8 1/8"

Raja Ram Sharma lives in Udaipur, Rajasthan in northwest India, a sumptuous lake city filled with 16th century temple complexes, palaces and elaborate gardens. Sharma's aptitude for drawing was exhibited so early that by age 7 he was sent to live with a renowned Indian painter. There he studied the traditions of the Nathdwara school, and learned to paint pichwai, the cloth paintings that hang behind Krisha in Hindu temples across Asia. Now a master temple painter, Sharma presides over a pichwai workshop where apprentices work to his specifications. 

Before the Storm, 2012, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 1/8 x 8 5/8"

In his free time, Sharma paints in the tradition of the Indian miniature typical of works developed in the Mughal empire. He applies mineral pigments to recycled paper, transforming each stroke as if it were a precious jewel. The marvelous detail is owed both to a lifetime of study as well as the single-hair brushes he makes from squirrel hair. (Single-hair is a bit of a misnomer -- it's not literally a single hair -- it's a tuft of hair from the tail of a squirrel that is shaped to allow a single hair to ascend to the tip). The bounce and flexibility of each brush is key to its use. The detail below measures less than one square inch of the painting above. 

detail: Before the Storm

Sharma's representative, Navneet Raman, curator and owner of Kriti Gallery in Benares, was kind enough to share some insights on the contemporary miniature with me last week.

The origins of the Persian miniature date back to 16th century. Typical of these paintings then, and not so different now, were the depictions of court life, historic battles, hunting scenes, landscape and wildlife. Today the art itself, while popular, is considered by the cultural elite as a part of the craft tradition, existing outside of the fine arts. It's not uncommon for contemporary artists in India eschew this magical tradition in spite of its delicate beauty. In fact, the ubiquitous miniatures found in local bazaars and tourist venues are often copies painted by teams of artisans, frequently falsely aged to have the appearance of antiquity. And throughout history -- even at the highest levels -- the subject matter in these particular paintings has been determined by patronage, not by individual expression. In this regard Sharma's new work, driven solely by his own artistic vision, is something of a revolution.

Flight to Freedom, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments w/gum arabic, 12 1/4 x 7 3/8"

For Raja Ram Sharma, a commitment to practice, a large following, and a new found independence has armed him with the will to exercise his voice well beyond the existing conventions. 

When Victoria Munroe (co-owner of The Drawing Room, with Emily Goldstein) met the artist in 2003, he was at the cusp of artistic liberation. She wanted to exhibit his work and offered him an extraordinary creative outlet by saying, "paint what you want." A revelation for any artist -- to be sure -- but in this case, unprecedented.

Study I, 2001, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 6 x 8 1/8"

Raja Ram Sharma's first exhibition at the former Victoria Munroe Fine Arts in Boston garnered reviews in Art in America, Arts of Asia and The New York Times. Two of Sharma's paintings now hang between 16th and 17th century miniatures at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. 

There have been moments of dazzling balance between the representational and the abstract -- for example, Byzantine mosaics; pre-Columbian and American Indian textiles and ceramics; Japanese screens; Mughal painting; and post-Impressionism.

Roberta Smith, New York Times, March 28, 2010 

"Until it's on exhibit," said Navneet, "no one sees this work other than Raja and his wife. In fact, this work has not been shown in India -- it's the first time I've even seen it framed."

Navneet Raman, owner and curator of Kriti Gallery

"These exhibitions -- in Boston and here -- they have allowed him to buy a house for his family, and it's big enough for him to work," said Navneet. "But more than that, it's the acceptance he feels. That is tremendous."

"When we exhibited his paintings in 2005
(in India), it was the first time miniature paintings were shown in a stand-alone exhibition outside a museum. Every piece sold on opening night. He has many followers now. In October he will exhibit at Kriti (in Benares) -- we anticipate a successful event."

The Udaipur region suffers tremendous annual droughts that are followed by drenching monsoons, and in this way the region bounces from the inhospitable to the luscious, and then back again. Its undulating landscape provides little agricultural terrain and the area is constantly imperiled by a diminishing underground water table. Sharma locates this vulnerability in the sun-burnt hillsides and empty palace grounds of his paintings, everywhere devoid of humans. And then, it is transformed into a verdant Shangri-La, cycling just as it might in the natural world.

photo Cary Wolinsky, National Geographic

Mineral pigments are just what they sound like -- actual nuggets of agate, pearl, lapus lazuli, gold and the like, that are pulverized into powder, using gum arabic as a binder, much like egg is to tempera. 

Sharma's wife hand grinds pigment for 10 to 12 days straight -- yes, every day for a week and a half -- using a mortar and pestle. Each mineral exhibits singular qualities that require varied applications, assorted brushes and specific treatments. A lifetime of preparation stands at the foreground of the use of these pigments.

And, in case you're wondering, in Udaipur and other parts of India you don't get your studio materials at 1-800-mineralpigments. Sources for the best pigments are tricky to locate and complicated to maintain, requiring assiduous research and frequent updates. 

"The average person, if they got a bag of mineral pigments," said Navneet, "they would have absolutely no idea what to make of them."

So, after forty some years of painting what other people dictate, what's an artist to do?

Freedom on the Move, 2011, hand ground mineral pigments with gum arabic, 7 3/8 x 12 1/2"

Sharma's recent works depict a world in which humanity is represented only by its architecture, its articulated landscapes and the wildlife by which it is surrounded. Boats drift without passengers, horses without riders and empty windows, loggias and bridges abound. It is the artist's personal testament to humankind's lurking dissociation to the natural world. In this regard, Sharma's paintings possess a sense of longing, stillness and solitude and a reverence for the depth of this rich cultural landscape.

The Signs of Change with the Advent of the Monsoon, 2010

Raja Ram Sharma, Contemporary Paintings from Rajasthan is on view through October 29. Don't miss this wonderful show.



 

Another interesting note: currently on view at the Museum of Art and Design, selections from the extraordinary collection of Doris Duke's Shangri-La in Hawaii are on view in the exhibit Doris Duke's Shangri-La: Architecture, Landscape and Islamic Art.  

This marks the first time any of the foundation's 3,500 works of art have been exhibited off site, and includes works by six contemporary artists who were recently in residence there. The Gods must be speaking...

streaming: ground and glimmer

David Kennedy-Cutler, L: detail of Total Rupture; C: Hollow Ground; R: Elise Ferguson, Crab X

 

David Kennedy-Cutler and Elise Ferguson

Halsey McKay

August 31 - September 30

Late summer is a time for blue moons, deep breathing and a little reflection -- especially here on the East End. This month there are few places better to take it all in than Halsey McKay, whose end-of-season exhibit of works by David Kennedy-Cutler and Elise Ferguson is an absolute must. Both artists create works that are fresh and optical, with widely divergent results. Where Ferguson is tactile and geometric, Kennedy-Cutler's work  is fluid, atmospheric and nearly alchemistic in its methodology.

Elise Ferguson, Green Ledger, 2012, pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 24 x 18"

Lending to the architectural mood of Elise Ferguson's work, her use of pigmented plaster goes a long way toward bas relief and the sort of streamlined facades typical of post-modern architecture. Constructed as much as they are painted, in her two-dimensional works, shapes of color are buttressed against other shapes of color as they coalesce into rhythmic, pulsing abstractions. X's and o's, stripes and chevrons, networks of lines, rhomboids and crisscrossing vectors commingle in such close proximity they seem to be incised into the surface. 

Elise Ferguson, Zipper Zag, 2012, pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 24 x 18"

Where color, surface and line meet formally, Ferguson's pictorial gumption drives them well beyond ordinary logic. While the works possess a sense of quietness, structurally they are robust, with a spatial tension among component parts that is dramatic and sumptuous. 

Incidents of their making accumulate at junctures across the surface, revealing an intuitive and visceral process.

C-Sticks, 2011, Pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 24 x 18"

Coverlet, 2012, pigmented plaster, ink on MDF panel, 24 x 18"

L: Five Circles (mustard), R: Five Circles Cross Point, both 2012, pigmented plaster on MDF panel, 18 x 24"

Elise Ferguson, works on paper

Relative to Ferguson's structured corporeality, Kennedy-Cutler's sculptures are intangible --  even fugitive -- in context. 

F: detail, Kennedy-Cutler's Hollow Ground, 2011

Kennedy-Cutler's monoliths stand in the main gallery like sentinels from some future world. They're made from a soup of epoxy resins, Plexiglas and impermanent/permanent things (i.e., things in which the intended use is short-lived, while the ecological footprint is eternal) like inkjet prints, compact discs, and bits of technological debris. 

David Kennedy-Cutler, detail, Hollow Ground, 2011, MDF, UV epoxy resin, archival inkjet prints, 91 x 29 x 19"

Put altogether, the elements swim in a sort of surrealistic ooze, congealing into form that is downright Delphic in its unknowability.

Detail: Double Process Rainbow, 2011

Not to be completely over the top -- but the works are enigmatic and seductive, smart and weird, somewhat apocalyptic and very beautiful. 

Of course, beauty is subjective, and Kennedy-Cutler certainly gets it. On the flip side of the sculptures are the oily slicks on the Gowanus Canal, the Gulf or a hundred other ecological disaster sites, the mountains of plastic debris we've left behind, or -- even less optimistically -- the breaking circumference around our polar ice caps. Apocalyptic, in deed.

L-R: Total Rupture, 2011, Double Process Rainbow, 2011, Hollow Ground, 2011

Still, among the rippled surfaces and translucent walls of these enigmatic forms, we bounce from images of sweet brickle candy to broken glass to petroleum sludge, a mighty conceptual swing that gives the work its sharp edges as well as the language -- also fluid in nature -- to talk about it. 

ARENA 1, 2012, ink on paper, 28 1/2 x 21 1/2"

Upstairs, Kennedy-Cutler's works on paper are ferociously metaphysical -- astral, even. Transient and illusive, the image field here is animated with breaking, sinking, crashing and the resounding sense of falling, like the splintering of so many cathedral windows. 

In a way, the images are aural, making quiet music amid the clinking of shattered glass, crackling ice, melted sugar.

ARENA IV, 2012, ink on paper, 28 1/2 x 21 1/2"

This is a memorable show that you won't want to miss. Two remarkable young artists, on view through September 30th.

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Under the Radar, 2012, located at Camp Hero, Montauk

Alice Hope

Under the Radar

Parrish Road Show 2012

detail, Under the Radar, 2012

  

Invisibility is not the most typical of aspects functioning within contemporary art, but for

Alice Hope, whose enigmatic Montauk installation Under the Radar is on view through August 31, it is often central to her work. It could be said, in fact, that Hope colonizes areas of meaning more than she creates site-specific art, inserting systems of thought, reactivity, growth and mutability into situations that are driven, at least in part, by a very silent -- sometimes dizzying -- scientific imperative. 

At Camp Hero in Montauk, the results are expansive, meditative and somehow, in spite of complete inaudibility, decidedly symphonic.

 

What's it all about? When Hope was invited to participate in The Parrish Road Show 2012, a tour de force series of off-site installations organized by curator Andrea Glover, she selected a derelict cement pad due north of the hulking AF/FPS-35 Radar tower that presides over the Atlantic at Long Island's southeast tip. Located inside Camp Hero, a reportedly not so defunct military station now operated by the National Park Service, the tower is key to the weirdness of this place and should you go there, it will surely be one of the stranger excursions you undertake this summer. 

I highly recommend it. 

Built in 1962, the radar tower remains the only one of some 12 of this kind that is still in existence. In its heyday it served as part of a state-of-the-art Air Force base that operated through the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis under the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) network and NORAD through which it conducted surveillance of the highest order.  Given Hope's interest in magnetism and electromagnetic fields, the seductions of this place were incalculable.

In the long shadow of what the artist referred to as a "monument to technological obsolescence," she assembled some 300,000 ferrite magnets on steel plates at a distinct north/south tangent off the radar. The organizing principle -- precise, rhythmic, architectonic -- structured the magnets like building blocks that stretch out in long lines spelling the word "NO" in binary (01101110 01101111) and Morse code. It's a grand shout-out that recalls other communication markers that face upward like the Nasca lines and those mysterious crop circles, the authorship of which has never been determined. 

Taken as a whole, at first glance the installation looks like the interior of a massive Steinway concert grand, its intricate, serial architecture unfolding like a Saturday night at the New York Hypnotic School. Minimalist and elastic in concept, the installation and its chain link parentheses evokes a meditation on nature and science, presence and absence, secrecy and codification.

The sense of oscillation, attraction/repulsion and the magnetic field created here commingle with language and embedded meaning. The results are almost operatic, splaying outward with the sort of "spooky action" that Quantum physics employs to address the space-time continuum.

Speaking of spooky -- conspiracy theories abound about this place, some 278 acres of a lot of "Do Not Enter" signs, concrete bunkers, artillery casements and underground tunnels. The rumors range from experiments in psychotronics to electromagnetic mind control to time travel and beyond. Follow the links to The Montauk Project, and I guarantee you won't sleep tonight.  

Back to Alice Hope...concurrent to Under the Radar and on view through October, the artist also assembled three separate but related works at one of East Hampton's favorite watering-holes, Nick and Toni's. 

Nick and Toni's on North Main Street, East Hampton

The scrims that hang in the restaurant entrance, visible from North Main Street, create shifting Moiré patterns that seem to modulate into various optical patterns with every movement. Flanked by a wall of beaded curtain in varying hues of green (below), the effect is a little hallucinatory -- chimerical -- like a counter-culture primer on particle physics.

 

Last, but most emphatically not least, in the outdoor dining area nearly 100 "lamps," each one handmade by Hope, are fitted with motion detecting lights that slowly flicker throughout the evening. Hovering above the heads of unsuspecting diners, the lights react to wait staff, walkthroughs and other movement as they sprinkle flashes of brilliance downward.

You don't want to miss these extraordinary works -- believe me. And bravo to Alice Hope for embarking on a summer journey of thinking and working outside the margins.