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For Immediate Release: Abstract Paintings on Paper at Jay Grimm Gallery, Chelsea
Most of these painters work primarily on canvas, using paper to inspire and flesh out ideas. Their styles and sources are disparate, the common link being abstraction. Nancy Diamond paints small-scale oils that straddle figuration and abstraction. Tightly rendered ambiguous forms populate compressed landscapes. At times, the almost-human objects appear to be victims of violence or disease, trapped in stark inhospitable spaces. Her drawings are surprisingly lyrical, tonal poems that evoke much more gentle circumstances, although at times her darker side can be glimpsed. For this exhibition, Diamond will pin up dozens of unframed pieces, which mimics her studio practice of using them as notes for paintings. While Diamond uses her drawings as starting points, Claire McConaughy works primarily on paper. Folding heavy paper over standard stretcher bars, McConaughy's works appear at first to be canvases. Upon closer inspection, the absorbent qualities of the paper become apparent. McConaughy pours Sumi ink over the stretched paper, allowing the medium to pool and diffuse. The series is titled 'Memory Flood', which refers to both the fluid process and the hazy, inexact nature of visual recollection. Melissa Meyer has exhibited widely since the mid-1970s, including over 10 New York solo shows. Her work is featured in the recently published book, Garner Tullis and the Art of Collaboration. The work to be shown is drawn from a body of watercolors executed at Yaddo, New York last summer. Made up of a patchwork of color fields and loose gestures, the papers demonstrate Meyer's intuitive search for beauty for which her oils are known. The color harmonies of warm greens and yellows in this series seem to embody the human response to landscape. Landscape is also at the forefront of Carolanna Parlato's work. Pouring opaque acrylic paint, she creates broad areas of flat colors that collide and mix in a dramatic fashion. The resulting shapes resemble natural forms, rendered in striking, vibrant colors. Parlato will have a solo show of her work on canvas next month at Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art, New York. Gary Petersen's work combines a pop sensibility with a tortured sense of the human body. His twisted forms are at once cartoonish figures, rendered in soft, pleasing colors and disturbing takes on the theme of mortality. The drawings to be exhibited rely less on the figure, detailing the sophisticated balance of color and line that drives his work on canvas. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11-7 P.M., and by appointment. Please contact the Gallery at 212.564.7662 for images and additional information.
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Jay
Grimm Gallery at 505 West 28th Street, New York, will hold a group exhibition
from January 20 through February 12, 2000, of works on paper by Nancy
Diamond, Claire McConaughy, Melissa Meyer, Carolanna Parlato and Gary
Petersen.