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Heide Hatry: SKIN

By Addison Parks

Instead of trying to consolidate, integrate, or reconcile each of these different avenues into the work of one artist, herself, she curiously invented several different artists, with their own name, personality, and look, who could each enjoy the drive down said avenues alone. At once Hatry has cleverly side-stepped the charge of dilettante, and two-stepped her way to Duchamp's side.


Chuck Close: CLOSE

By Martin Mugar

What took Close beyond the figurative movement was his interest in pixilation. Probably generated by the realization that as you look closer beyond the detail of the texture of each hair follicle you enter into the world of visual cognition beyond detail where the image of the face is in fact a myriad of impulses created out of the rods and cones of the eye. It is a strange reversal that as we try to pin the real down with more and more detail the less real the image becomes.


MADNESS AND MYSTICISM: THE GHOST OF GREGORY GILLESPIE

By Addison Parks

It not only meant a lot that he chose to live here too, it meant even more that in the end he chose not to. This man had done it all, and done it his way, and it apparently wasn’t enough. What did that say for the rest of us? If it wasn’t good enough for him, how could the rest of us hope to survive and flourish? The ghost of Gregory Gillespie haunts us still.


JOHN WALKER: PAINTING SURVEY 2008/WALKABOUT

By Addison Parks/Martin Mugar

These many years, these many paintings, tell this story. The call of starlight; the promise of starlight. The shit/mud/primordial ooze that we stand in as we look to the stars(AP). I thought of titling the show "Low Tide Languor;" that meditative space on the beach at slack tide where you dwell on your place in the natural cycle of birth and death(MM).


LOUISE FISHMAN: THE MACDOWELL SERIES

By Addison Parks

During this period she painted a series of small canvases which seemed to represent a significant departure from the earlier work. In point of fact, they were very different. This work marks what might be a stage not unlike the metamorphosis of a caterpillar. Fishman's MacDowell paintings are as limber and as radiant as the butterfly.


ROY LICHTENSTEIN: LANDSCAPES IN THE CHINESE STYLE

Foster Gallery; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston;

Once again Pop god Roy Lichtenstein has turned his genius loose on something old, or borrowed, or blue, and made it fun and new. We've always been able to look forward to his next move like we would a new cd by a great band, or a new book by a great author; knowing that it would change us, forever. We count on this from art, and life is gray without it.


JOHN SINGER SARGENT
Gund Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
By Martin Mugar

To the painting enthusiast, professional or amateur ,who admires the techniques of realism, the matching of flesh tone, the verisimilitude of satin, the glisten of a moist eye, J.SS provides a sumptuous visual feast.


LEON POLK SMITH
American Master Turns Ninety
(Dies at Ninety-one;12/96)

"Having grown up in Oklahoma and having been older than the state, there wasn't much art there. So it was still younger than I at college age, and I had never seen an original painting. I don't think I knew anyone very well who even had art in their vocabulary. And it's quite by accident that I discovered art."

The Paintings of Porfirio DiDonna Into The Garden

The final works exploded onto paper and canvas in 1985, just before something exploded in his brain. They possess that intensity of almost unbearable proportion.


INTO BESS: THE PAINTINGS OF FORREST BESS

Forrest Bess painted inspired images which, like the call of a bird, could be sensed in their entirety; gritty little paintings getting at something inexpressible, whose power and meaning were unmistakable but whose content was incomprehensible, even for him.


Traces of Living

LESLEY DILL leaves me guessing. The nature of her work is secretive. She may give us a look at something big, a shape like a figure, but it is really an apparition. Once we get close, get inside, the work slips through our fingers and we are in the dark. What we are left with is a residue hanging in the air like perfume or smoke.


INSIDE
Judy Glantzman
And with what color and passion of paint they do what they do. Splats and scrapes and blobs to temper her deft brush. Dimensions of space, time, and experience like the Shades, she takes our hand and guides us underneath.


HAROLD SHAPINSKY;MISSING LINK

And it wasn't what he said, and it wasn't that his paintings didn't make an impression, because he said good things, and makes wonderful paintings. No, what impressed me about Harold Shapinsky, and really made me appreciate his paintings and understand them so much more, was what he didn't say.

Rosemarie Trockel; TROJAN HORSE

Seeing that bit of emotion and candor made me look at the rest of the work differently. It made me re-examine not only the vulnerability of the work, but also the fear, the anger, the touch, and, in the end, the humor.

The Promise: Bill Jensen

The story is fascinating. What happened? What happened to make Bill Jensen drop his sure thing, the golden sword and shield, the cherished crest? You could see it coming a dozen years ago. Blow the lid off and what have you got? What's left, at the bottom, on the other side? Nothing, we fear. Nothing to live for, and paint for. To care for and get out of bed for. Lose the will and what power is there?

The Lead: William Wegman

WILLIAM WEGMAN graciously acknowledges that he follows his dog's lead; that the model, in this case a dog, through some mood or gesture, shows him what he will do. This really is a question of grace, for the results are pure inspiration! In his dogs, Man Ray and Fay, he has recognized the uncanny expression of an immense humanity that wasn't human at all and has realized it with both vision and humor.

The Flower: Sol LeWitt

"In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair."

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