Alex Paik at Gallery Joe

Alex Paik: Prelude and Fugue

Installation view of Alex Paik at Gallery Joe,
From Two Coats of Paint

Alex Paik's suite of works made with cut paper, gouache, and colored pencil, Prelude and Fugue, is currently on display at Gallery Joe.  Paik is one of the founders of the art space in Philadelphia Tiger Strikes Asteroid.  This is his first solo show at Gallery Joe and is entitled Recapitulation Bop.  It will be on display until November 10th.

Alex Paik, 2012, Prelude and Fugue (Airy)

Alex Paik, 2012, Prelude and Fugue (Bars)

According to Sharon Butler at Two Coats of Paint, Paik is also opening a new branch of Tiger Strikes Asteroid in Bushwick in November.

Richard Bottwin's Wall Sculptures

Richard Bottwin

Parallel #1, 2006, 14" x  8.5" x  9"
Macassar Ebony on Birch Plywood, Acrylic Paint
from richardbottwin.com

I recently read the article A few highlights from the 2012 DUMBO Arts Festival on Two Coats of Paint which introduced me to the art of Richard Bottwin.  His wall sculptures are fresh takes on motifs from modernist painting/reductive abstraction.  His works are strictly non-objective, emphasizing color and form but lacking the dogmatic Greenbergian trait of flatness which suspiciously speaks to the essence of the business aspect of art rather than the "essence of a painting" (A flat painting can be mass produced as a commodity).  Also, rather than the pieces being strictly autonomous and fixed from any vantage point, the perspective of the viewer plays a key role in experiencing the piece.

Profile #2, 2008 16" x 13.5" x 13"
Acrylic Color and Zebrawood Veneer on Birch Plywood
Vantage Point #1, from richardbottwin.com

"The surfaces, laminated with wood veneers or painted with acrylic colors, are configured to reveal surprising shapes and patterns with shifts in the viewer's perspective.  A sense of disorientation, implied weightlessness and the element of surprise are created by the reductive forms and subvert the modernist vocabulary of the simple constructions." - Richard Bottwin

Profile #2, 2008 16" x 13.5" x 13"
Acrylic Color and Zebrawood Veneer on Birch Plywood
Vantage Point #2, from richardbottwin.com

Deconstructed Paintings: Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan's deconstructed paintings probably take most viewers outside of their comfort zone, not bringing attention to either the surface of the work or the image being created, but even further back. The"surfaces" of her deconstructed paintings allow the viewer to simultaneously view the materials and the substrate.  It is hard to see them for anything that they are not, pushing the limits of process/craft oriented art.  The entropic forms created tend to negotiate with the materials used rather than dominating and sublimating them into the world of high art, and this is why the work is successful.