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Sam Gillan

Watercolour, 4 1969

Watercolor, and aluminum powder on fiberglass paper 23 3/4 x 18 1/8" (60.3 x 45.9 cm)

Blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation, Sam Gilliam wrestles with the physicality of the art object and its relationship to the viewer.

he moved to Washington, DC, during the formation of Color Field painting, which emphasized the use of flat planes of color and novel paint application techniques.

Gilliam soon experimented with color, form, and technique, pouring pigments and folding canvases while still wet. 

 remove his canvases from their stretchers entirely, and, inspired by laundry on clotheslines, hang them from the ceiling or walls.

Gilliam transformed painting into something sculptural and three-dimensional, disrupting traditional modes of presentation and viewing. 

He also incorporated metal forms, alternative materials like yarn and glitter, varied applications of paint, and quilt-inspired patterning into his practice.

“the expressive act of making a mark and hanging it in space is always political. My work is as political as it is formal.”

Sam Gilliam, Green April, 1969,

acrylic on canvas, 98 x 271 x 3 7/8 inches (248.9 x 688.3 x 9.8 cm), Collection of Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland, Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, photography by Lee Thompson.

his lyrical abstractions took on an increasing variety of forms, moods, and materials.

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Water Lilies painted by Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)

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* * *

“I’d rather risk an ugly surprise than rely on things I know I can do.”

- Helen Frankenthaler.

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Helen Frankenthaler

Midnight Shore

2002

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YOURS, JUST THE WORD AND I WILL BE THERE.

1. letters to felice, frank kafka | 2. strangers, ethel cain | 3. overture (1992), helen frankenthaler | 4. desperation sits heavy on my tongue, a.m | 5. against the loveless world: a novel, susan abulhawa | 6. a green thought in a green scale (1981), helen frankenthaler | 7. wife, mitski | 8. ruth 1:16 | 9. lush spring (1975), helen frankenthaler | 10. no exit, jean-paul sartre

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Helen Frankenthaler

"There are no rules... that is how art is born, that is how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules, that is what invention is about."

has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. 

She was eminent among the second generation of postwar American abstract painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. 

Through her invention of the soak-stain technique, she expanded the possibilities of abstract painting, while at times referencing figuration and landscape in unique ways.

Towards a New Climate, 1957

Oil on canvas 70 x 98 in. (177.8 x 248.9 cm)

The Bay, 1963

Acrylic on canvas 80 3/4 x 81 3/4 inches  (205 x 208 cm) Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan

A Green Thought in a Green Shade, 1981

Acrylic on canvas 119 x 156 1/2 inches (302.3 x 397.5 cm)

Grey Fireworks, 1982

Acrylic on canvas 72 x 118 1/2 inches (182.9 x 301 cm) Private Collection

Close up, Grey Fireworks, 1982

Untitled, 1962

Oil on paper 19 1/8 x 24 7/8 inches (48.6 x 63.2 cm)

Canal Street XIV, 1987

Acrylic on paper 24 1/2 x 39 1/2 inches  (62.2 x 100.3 cm)

Kiss, 2003

Acrylic on paper 8 x 10 inches (20.3 x 25.4 cm)

Cool Summer, 1962

Oil on canvas, 69 ¾ × 120 inches (177.2 × 304.8 cm) (C) 9018 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Nature Abhors a Vaccum, 1973

Acrylic on canvas, 103 ½ × 112 inches (262.9 x 284.5 cm), National Gallery of Art, Washington, © 2018 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation,

Syzygy, 1987

Acrylic on canvas, 88 / X 59 ½ inches (224.2 x 151.1 cm)| © 2018 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, inc. Artists kiants society Aro. New york

A line, color, shapes, spaces, all do one thing for and within themselves, and yet do something else, in relation to everything that is going on within the four sides [of the canvas]. A line is a line, but [also] is a color. . . . It does this here, but that there. The canvas surface is flat and yet the space extends for miles. What a lie, what trickery—how beautiful is the very idea of painting. —Helen Frankenthaler

End of Summer, 1995

Acrylic on paper, 78 × 78 inches (198.1 × 198.1 cm) 9094 1een Trankentna pr rAlinearan Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Untitled, 1996

Acrylic and charcoal on paper, 40 ¼ × 60 ⅛ inches (102.2 × 152.7 cm) © 2024 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New

“I’ve always worked on paper,” she noted in 1996, “but not conceived on the scale of my canvases. . . . The shift was a tremendous move for me.”

The paintings in the exhibition reveal her exploration of the material and compositional possibilities of working on paper: new kinds of chromatic juxtapositions and painterly gestures, often set down on a smoother surface than canvas.

At several earlier moments in her career, Frankenthaler had added more visibly dense brushstrokes and applications of pigment to the revolutionary soak-stain technique she had pioneered in the early 1950s. This approach became a constant in her late compositions. After working directly on the floor during the first four decades of her career, she began painting on large, waist-high tabletops, a concession to her age; the turn to painting on paper also coincided with her increased activity in printmaking.

"My pictures are full of climates, abstract climates, and not nature per se. But a feeling. And the feeling of an order that is associated more with nature. Nature in seasons, maybe; but nature in, well, an order. And I think art itself is order out of chaos." —Helen Frankenthaler

In her pioneering work of the 1950s, inspired by Jackson Pollock, Frankenthaler had poured both linear tracks and spreading areas of thinned paint onto unprimed canvas. 

Challenged the established norms of brushwork and control. By allowing the paint to seep and bleed into the fabric, she embraced the unpredictable nature of the medium and introduced an element of spontaneity and freedom into her process. This unleashed a dynamic interplay of colours and forms, creating works that were vibrant, alive, and deeply expressive.

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James Turrell

influenced by the notion of pure feeling in pictorial art

constructing light and painting with light

building on the sensorial experience of space, color, and perception.

Turrell produced some of his first light sculptures, using gases to create flat flames that burned in even colors.

James Turrell, From Aten Reign, 2016,

Ukiyo-e Japanese style woodcut with relief printing, 26" × 18-1/2" (66 cm × 47 cm), Edition of 30 + 6 APs © James Turrell

work with high-intensity projectors as a light source, producing the first of his Projection Pieces, Afrum-Proto.

These studies of perceptual anomalies further ignited his interest in the celestial realm, and he began to incorporate aviation into his practice by creating sky drawings with the artist Sam Francis.

Turrell’s practice has equally materialized in small-scale works, including architectural models, holograms, and works on paper.

A leading figure of the Light and Space movement, James Turrell creates colored light installations and holographs that produce awe-inspiring optical illusions: Turrell’s pieces can look like cubes, flat planes, pyramids, or tunnels, when they’re simply composed of light. The artist studied at the University of California, Irvine, before attending the art and technology program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There, he worked alongside fellow light artist Robert Irwin and honed his now-signature process and aesthetic. Turrell’s work has been shown in institutions around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Museo Jumex, among others. Since the 1970s, Turrell has been working on a celestial light observatory at the Roden Crater in Arizona.

Roden Crater Site Plan along the Summer Solstice Axis, 2024

Gold leaf and glass 18 × 14 1/5 × 5 in | 45.7 × 36.1 × 12.7 cm Edition 3/30 Part of a limited edition set

Roden Crater Site Plan, 2020

Inkjet Blueprint 44 1/10 × 54 1/10 in | 112 × 137.3 cm Edition 9/100 Part of a limited edition set

Yus-Asaph, Rectangular Glass, 2021

LED light, etched glass and shallow space 46 × 62 in | 116.8 × 157.5 cmUnique work

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Hughie O'Donoghue

Born in Manchester, Hughie O’Donoghue now lives and works in rural Ireland. O’Donoghue has internationally since 1982 and is considered one of the leading painters of his generation. His work is represented in public collections, including the National Gallery, London, the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and the Arts Council of England. The solo exhibition ‘Hughie O’Donoghue: Recent Paintings and Selected Works from the American Ireland Fund Donation’ was held at IMMA in 2009

Laocoon, 2003

Medium: Oil on linen canvas in 3 panels

Dimensions: Unframed, 305 x 468 cm 

O’Donoghue uses figuration and abstraction to explore themes of human identity, memory, and experience; and draws on history, mythology, and personal records to create works that resonate with emotional intensity.

Fallen Elm (Kilfane) Oil on board, 71 x 122cm (28 x 48") Signed, inscribed and dated 2007/'8 verso

Evening Kilfane, Co. Kilkenny Oil on canvas, 68 x 104cm (26¾ x 41") Signed; signed inscribed and dated 2007 verso

His work is abstract in style, presenting the human body as distorted and blurred forms, drawn in thick and heavy brushstrokes. He often applies numerous layers of paint, or includes photographs or documentary sources within the canvas, covered in more paint.

 The surfaces of his canvas are full of texture, in which the material takes paramount importance

This process of layering reflects O'Donoghue's interest in engaging with historical narratives, often personal in nature, so that he can express the serial form of experience and memory.  

"painting is archaeology in reverse"

“The colours in my paintings are also intense, but in my work there’s never only one reason for why something is the way it is. I suppose I deliberately court the intensity of colour to mirror the intensity of feeling that comes with memory.

fascinated by the passing of time

For him, painting is a form of both archaeology and remembrance

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Generative Art

"Generative art is art made using a predetermined system that often includes an element of chance – is usually applied to computer based art"

The practice has its roots in dada, yet it was the pioneering artist Harold Cohen who was considered one of the first practitioners of generative art when he used computer-controlled robots to generate paintings in the late 1960s. More recently the Turner Prize winner Keith Tysonbuilt an ArtMachine, a complex recursive system that generated detailed propositions for artworks for Tyson to make.

The term generative art is predominantly used in reference to a certain kind of art made on the net, particularly because artists devise programs that can be accessed and controlled by the public. Generative art is also associated with process art

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Process Art

"The term process art refers to where the process of its making art is not hidden but remains a prominent aspect of the completed work, so that a part or even the whole of its subject is the making of the work"

Process became a widespread preoccupation of artists in the late 1960s and the 1970s, but like so much else can be tracked back to the abstract expressionist paintings of Jackson Pollock. In these the successive layers of dripped and poured paint can be identified and the actions of the artist in making the work can be to some extent reconstructed. The later colour field paintings of Morris Louis clearly reveal his process of pouring the paint onto the canvas.

In process art too there is an emphasis on the results on particular materials of carrying out the process determined by the artist. In Louis again, the forms are the result of the interaction of artist’s action, the type and viscosity of the paint, and the type and absorbency of the canvas. Richard Serra made work by throwing molten lead into the corners of a room. Robert Morrismade long cuts into lengths of felt and then hung them on a nail or placed them on the floor, allowing them to take on whatever configurations were dictated by the interaction of the innate properties of the felt, the artist’s action and gravity.

The British painter Bernard Cohen made paintings by establishing a set process for the work and then carrying it through until the canvas was full. John Hilliard’s photographic work Camera Recording its Own Condition of 1971 is a particularly pure example of process art, as is Michael Craig-Martin’s 4 Complete Clipboard Sets.

he later colour field paintings of Morris Louis clearly reveal his process of pouring the paint onto the canvas.

Louis again, the forms are the result of the interaction of artist’s action, the type and viscosity of the paint, and the type and absorbency of the canvas.

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Experiment Excerpts series

Black, 2012. C-print, 60 x 50"

This series results from Nelson’s experiments with historical mordançage techniques. The patterns resembling organic matter are the outcomes ofstrong chemical reactions orchestrated in the laboratory. When combined, the molecular structures of these varying substances are dismantled and rearranged to form patterns of undulating wave-like swirls. In digitally blowing up the traces of these analog procedures, Nelson directs our attention towards the life-like features of chemicals pointing to what the writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov refers to as possibility of other worldly “life-not-as-we-know-it.” As such, Experiment Excerpts bring to mind what the feminist philosopher Jane Bennett calls “vibrant matter,” the forces and flows of materialities that can become lively, signaling, and affective; a liveliness that is swerving, buzzing, and turbulent

Brittany Nelson (b. 1984, Great Falls, MT) explores 19th-century photographic chemistry techniques and science fiction to address themes of loneliness, isolation, and distance within the queer community and its parallels with space exploration.

Mordançage Series

Distorting processes from photographic history, the vibrant patterns in these reliefs are caused by violent chemical reactions. In applying mordançage solutions to silver gelatin prints, Nelson bleaches selected areas and simultaneously lifts specific dark hues of the emulsion. This late 19th century technique is commonly appreciated for its stark contrasts, precise contours, and depths of light applied to create life-like portraits. In appropriating the historical process, Nelson suspends virtuosity and representation as photographic ideals. The works gouge a different potential application of the chemical bonds and—in continuation of feminist and queer abstraction—unfetter the constraints of resemblance to real-world referents. They call to mind Luciana Parisi’s cyberfeminist theory of microfeminine particle-forces emerging from non-linear reactions between potential and actual desires, resulting in intensifications of mutant desires.

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Louise Giovanelli

https://www.whitecube.com/artists/louise-giovanelli?_gl=11mnftzk_upMQ.._gaMTI4NzU5NzM0Mi4xNzI4OTk4NzEx_ga_69SWDNXKNMMTcyODk5ODcxMC4xLjAuMTcyODk5ODcxMC4wLjAuMA.._ga_LMVZ29E0TN*MTcyODk5ODcxMC4xLjAuMTcyODk5ODcxMC4wLjAuNTkzMDY3MDk1

Reworking and often closely cropping details from paintings, photographs, classical sculpture, architecture and theatre, Giovanelli’s visual motifs traverse series, employing repetition as a leitmotif in order to achieve an augmented sense of reality. Where subjects are repeated, paintings that appear near identical are, however, rendered individual by slight alterations in composition or tone: ‘Repetition has two functions in my work. As a practical learning mechanism and as a psychological and conceptual device.’ 

An Ex IV, NYC Subway / Frankfurt am Main, 2019

Print on folded papers

20 × 27 1/2 in | 50.8 × 69.9 cm

Edition of 200

Louise Giovanelli

An Ex III, 2019

Oil on canvas

170 x 130 cm | 66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in

Louise Giovanelli

Billyo VI, 2019

Oil on canvas

80 x 50 cm | 31 1/2 x 19 3/4 in

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For over forty years, Bernard Frize has examined what it means to make a painting. Working in series, he has developed diverse protocols in order to undermine his own creative role and thus free his compositions of self-expression. For Frize, paint, resin, brush and canvas are not materials to be mastered, but collaborators with whom he enters into a working relationship. The terms of this partnership may vary from series to series, but ever-constant is the notion that the media itself is equally as important as the hand of the artist in determining the look and feel of a final painting. Subtle in some works and significant in others, the drips, pools, swirls, and blobs of paint found throughout Frize’s large colorful abstractions evidence his anti-auteur relationship to painting. Preferring to raise questions rather than provide answers, Frize invites viewers to consider the implications of process and materials (what is painting) on form and content (what is a painting).

OMENA, 2023

Acrylic and resin on canvas

150 x 130 cm | 59 1/16 x 51 3/16 inch

Unique

Bernard Frize’s paintings are neither narrative nor mutilated, but they owe their creation, in large part, to a kind of sanctioned degeneration. Unruly paint has been allowed to bleed over the artist’s own brushwork, complicating systematic strokes with smudges, swathes and stains whose amorphous hazy forms that suggest various celestial bodies. Managing to appear simultaneously vibrant and on the brink of ruin, the canvas reflects Frize’s complex and ever-evolving relationship to paint, the act of painting and what it means to be a painter.

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Using gestural brushstrokes or stains across the medium, Benvenuto focuses on line and detail to build a narration of the life around her. She draws back to significant events, the people she’s met, or the changing landscape. Fundamentally, the artist surprises herself every day, shocking herself with what’s not familiar. From the changing seasons to the sweeping ocean — she is ever surrounded by inspiration, in awe of its beauty. 

Benvenuto found her calling within abstract works, focusing on what cannot be represented. In her artworks, the artist wants to explore and create new imagery to navigate the current world. Working from the mind, using memories to shape her composition, Benvenuto connects with her audience through visual representation; a soft curve becoming a wave, or gestural mark-making turning into long grass dancing in the wind. 

Her works narrate an exploration of textile, material and technique, probing the viewer to move closer to the works, at times leaving the linen raw inviting an organic aesthetic. Geometric shapes, sharp lines, or paint gestures activate the viewer’s eye in an array of multi-colour.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?

Ultimately, I wish for my artwork to spark conversations and introspection. Whether it's the boldness of colors, the rhythm of lines, or the unexpected combinations in my sculptures, I hope my creations leave a lasting impression that lingers in the hearts and minds of those who encounter them. By capturing attention and evoking emotions, I aim to create a bridge between my inner artistic world and the diverse experiences of my audience. The interplay of vibrant colors and intricate forms is meant to prompt viewers to explore their own interpretations and connect with the stories I'm weaving through each piece. I hope that as people engage with my art, they find moments of reflection.

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to create energetic ridges and furrows of pigment that can be read as extreme close-ups of a painterly brushstroke, drawing attention to the action and materiality of painting itself. His works are structurally varied, ranging from a thin glaze through which the metal ground gleams to sculptural reliefs with overlapping ridges and furrows. In the context of Martin's notion that landscape painting and abstraction are intertwined, his work becomes an imaginary space, a mental landscape, an abstracted and mesmeric focal point for contemplation. 

Works on paper allow the artist to experiment with movement and colour before turning to larger-scale formats in oil. The fluidity of the cold process dye he employs enables him to explore the interaction between pigments, as he lets himself be guided by the merging tints of emerald green and ultramarine blue, yellow and ruby red.