Evan Trine "New Photographic Portraits" @ Roberts & Tilton

Self-Portrait (Naked in a  Bathtub), 2017

Unique archival pigment print

40 x 40 inches

This latest offering of the blurred line between painting and photography leaves me wondering not only about its resurgence of colored monochrome but also about like artists with like interest. For a moment, I thought I was looking at a Phil Chang exhibition, matters compounded by the fact that a collaborative project with Chang (see previous post here) was in the adjacent project space of the very same gallery. That said, you would have to look for Chang elsewhere (see here) to see whatI mean.  Confusions aside, what does it mean to distill a human image into a single pixel and meditate its specificities into a generalized, all-over, largely unified, mid-tone zone?  A celebration of human life or a dirge about its passing? Given the grim tones, I suspect the latter.  For, these are not the colors typically associated with bursting, energetic life.

Self Portrait (In My Mickey Sweatshirt), 2017

Unique archival pigment print

40 x 40 inches

Photography's search to find itself in real space having been displaced within the virtual spaces bred of digital technology is an interesting terrain to explore and these works seem to do that, at the very least even conjuring the thought which is sometimes good enough.

Portrait (Erin and Danny at Christmas Party), 2017

Unique archival pigment print

40 x 40 inches

Like being underwater unable to see "out" unable to assess the temperature of the water, hence immersion, but on a conceptual level more than anything manifestly physical.Unique yet equal.  All things equalized. My own visage as a viewer held as a ghostly reflection in relation to the person represents. Is this an attempt at immersive photo installation or is it just me? Or just a happy accident of all three...?

Portrait (Eve and Nolan Sitting on the Roots of A Giant Bay Fig), 2017

Unique archival pigment print

40 x 40 inches

Portrait (Dean and Marcia Giving a Speech), 2017

Unique archival pigment print

40 x 40 inches

'Laeh Glen, John Houck, Phil Chang, and Ian James" @ Roberts & Tilton

Laeh Glenn

Good Morning, 2017

Oil and acrylic on canvas, hand painted artist frame

63 x 51 inches

John Hock

Pinking Shears, 2017

Inkjet print

30 x 24 inches

Phil Chang

Untitled (Work for Summer 2017 Group Show), 2017

Archival pigment ink on unique archival pigment print

37.5 x 30 inches

Ian James

i.e. violent hierarchy (after LG, JH, PC, & JA), 2017

Handcut adhesive pigment print

145 x 99 inches

Egan Frantz "The Oat Paintings" @ Roberts & Tilton

Nude Descending a Staircase, 2016

Acrylic, copper, piss, vinegar, and Old Fashioned oats on canvas

74.8 x 118.1 inches

Starry Night, 2016

Acrylic, copper, piss, vinegar, and Old Fashioned oats on canvas

74.8 x 118.1 inches

Shadow Paintings, 2016

Acrylic, copper, piss, vinegar, and Old Fashioned oats on canvas

74.8 x 59.1 inches

The Oat Paintings, 2016

Acrylic, copper, piss, vinegar, and Old Fashioned oats on canvas

74.8 x 59.1 inches each

Evan Nesbit @ Roberts & Tilton

Cork and Flute, 2016

Acrylic and inkjet print on vinyl

Pacific Expression (private education),  2016

Acrylic and inkjet print on vinyl

55 x 37

Daniel Joseph Martinez "IF YOU DRINK HEMLOCK, I SHALL DRINK IT WITH YOU or A BEAUTIFUL DEATH; player to player, pimp to pimp. (As performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade)" @ Roberts & Tilton

James Hayward "At Last" @ Roberts & Tilton

Most people want to talk about how these paintings are made or how they smell.  I want to talk about how they are seen, how they look.  These delicately nuanced paintings looked amazing in in spite of or possibly because of the bad gallery lighting. They hummed, and I couldn't seem to walk away, because the longer I was there, the more they offered. These photos are only a partial viewing of a much more comprehensive view, particularly one of surface detail.

What's black and white and red all over, I could imagine Jimmy saying.  For those who know him, know his brand of humor well. Nothing about these paintings seem funny, yet the personality behind them is fantastically so, a real cut up.  Here a slash, there a slash, everywhere a slash.  Oh, wait, I'm starting to talk about process, but I think it is important to think about how they are read as red.

As a personal aside, I met Jimmy while I was in grad school; he was one of my instructors, particularly on days when I was painting.  Occasionally, he would drop in, take a seat, and say nothing.  My studio lights were usually off and the modest ambient light from a skylight twenty feet above would cast a dim, moody condition. Of course, there's a lot more light in a room, if a certain amount of time is taken to adjust.  Similarly in this exhibition of Hayward's painting, as I moved deeper into the viewing exhibition of this suite of works (musical to be sure), the inner "red room," let's call it, glowed with faint light which instantly recalled the "events" of a somber Rothko (in all the best ways possible). Not quite a chapel, it certainly was an interior space for contemplation not unlike the dozing, downward meditation of absorbing minimal light in a paltry graduate studio.  This connection is one of immeasurable depth and words do not reach this far.  Jimmy once told me to "get rid of all that black." I tried, but never finished...

While my viewing of Hayward's "At Last" conjured moments of personal relation and reflection, there's nothing in these paintings that requires such connections.  They stand alone as paintings pure and simple.  The joys of looking have to do with paint itself, movement, light, time and space. None of my images here capture them well, not even close.  That these works defy photographic reproduction, for example, and can only exist in a present viewing moment is part of what makes them great. I thought briefly about REDRUM and red rooms in Kubrick's The Shining and Jack Goldstein's Burning Window and Aphorisms, an exhibition running concurrently just down the road at 1301PE; it too seemed to about the ineffable, phenomenal aspects of white, black, and red in relation to the shortcomings between language and direct experience.  Mostly, however, I enjoyed the subtleties within the paintings hanging right in front of me. I couldn't seem to walk away from them as I noted a heaviness and still presence in the air.  For whatever reasons, I was glad to have caught them getting on towards twilight.