Tag Archives: painting

‘Ebullient, Rigorous and Boastfully Esoteric’

Posted on June 23, 2025 by JMN

Walker Mimms’s treatment of Hilma af Klint is elegant, lyrical, explicit. Ebullient, rigorous and boastfully esoteric, these “Nature Studies,” as she called them, reveal the didactic side of a pioneer in nonliteral art. This is an economical show of some … Continue reading →

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‘His Technique Can Be Potently Slapdash’

Posted on May 31, 2025 by JMN

If the images in the survey feel more like news than comment, that’s partly because we can sense the press photos Shahn used as his sources. Though his paintings themselves aren’t close to photorealistic — his technique can be potently … Continue reading →

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Toyin Ojih Odutola Draws Loud

Posted on May 25, 2025 by JMN

I like how Toyin Ojih Odutola assembles faces from facets, a treatment I strive increasingly, if feebly, to approximate. I describe it to myself in personal shorthand as “envisaging”: implementing visage as a sort of ‘scape rather than anatomical likeness … Continue reading →

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Purloining With Pizzazz: Wayne Thiebaud

Posted on May 18, 2025 by JMN

This copying work helped Thiebaud figure out his own solutions to artistic problems. I blush to own it, but I was never keen on pointillism. For all that it purported to be scintillating, it has a diffuseness that feels static. … Continue reading →

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You Shall Not Crucify Mankind on a Cross of… Crypto

Posted on May 11, 2025 by JMN

With apologies to William Jennings Bryan, it’s called a “rug pull”: A celebrity touts a new digital coin, prices soar and then insiders who own most of the coins pull the rug: They sell their stakes for a big profit … Continue reading →

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‘Modest, Solitary Buildings Were Often Her Subject Matter’: Gretchen Dow Simpson (1939-2025)

Posted on May 10, 2025 by JMN

While modest, solitary buildings were often her subject matter, Ms. Simpson’s work was not purely representational. A former commercial photographer, she applied a telephoto approach to many of her paintings, zooming in on windows, doorways or rooftops to emphasize the … Continue reading →

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I Need Some Writer’s Block

Posted on March 26, 2025 by JMN

Really, I should draw, paint and read more, write less. It’s a constant struggle to pipe down.  Poetry, for one thing, triggers me. Intending to read a bait of versifying, before I know it I’m a keyboard Roman candle ejaculating … Continue reading →

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The ‘Color(ed) Theory’ of Artist Amanda Williams

Posted on March 17, 2025 by JMN

“There is something anthropomorphic about this work… I didn’t force it. That’s what made it powerful.” (Amanda Williams) In her studio, Williams experimented with her Prussian blue, layering, diluting and pouring the paint, letting it crack, pool and bleed across … Continue reading →

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Landscapes with High Horizon Lines, Shot Through with Blood and Shrapnel

Posted on March 9, 2025 by JMN

His layers of paint, a mudlike impasto, oil and acrylic paints mixed with raw materials like soil, iron, straw and dead leaves, form deep furrows on the canvas. These landscapes, with van Gogh’s high horizon lines, all seem to be … Continue reading →

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Messy Bacon

Posted on March 5, 2025 by JMN

I know an artist who thinks her studio is cluttered. The photo is from this article. (c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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