NEW YORK, NY.- Allan Stone Projects is presenting Dalia Ramanauskas: Ink Drawings, on view February 21 – March 30, 2019. A master of her medium, Ramanauskas brings heightened focus to everyday objects through her meticulous drawings of subjects such as books, playing cards and matchbooks.

Created in the 1960’s and 70’s, Dalia Ramanauskas’ still lifes offer a sensibility that sets her apart from her contemporaries. With an approach bordering on the scientific, the artist carefully renders each of her subjects like an anthropological specimen. Distortions in shadow and perspective create subtle unrealities within these compositions, imbuing them with a formal tension and poetic atmosphere akin to a Morandi still life. The result of Ramanauskas’ endeavor is a recycling of the precious memorabilia of everyday life and an exaltation of the ordinary.

Dalia Ramanauskas was born in 1936 in Kaunas, Lithuania. She came to the United States in 1949, where she later graduated from Southern Connecticut College in 1958. She has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, PA; the Albright Knox Museum, NY; the Institute of Contemporary Art of the University of Pennsylvania; the Norfolk Museum of Art, CT and the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, MA; among others. Ramanauskas is represented in several permanent collections including the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; the Minnesota Museum of Art; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; and the Yale University Art Gallery, CT.

Allan Stone Projects is also presenting Steve McCallum: Paintings 1984-1998, on view February 21 – March 30, 2019. McCallum’s inventive approach to color, space and pattern are featured in seven paintings selected from the Allan Stone Collection.

With their bright colors, energetic compositions and large scale, Steve McCallum’s paintings are steeped in the history of American abstraction. Amplifying the jazz energy of artists like Stuart Davis, McCallum cerates a maximalist style uniquely his own McCallum employs color charts and masking tape to plan his compositions in a process similar to that of hard-edge painter Al Held, a longtime influence of the artist. Working from foreground to background, McCallum builds up each layer, revealing the final composition when the masking tape is removed. Depending on the layers and chromatic contrast, the implied space of each painting varies from deeply complex and dimensional, as in Disc-It, to flat and geometric, as seen in Zydeco Z’s. Though his paintings are meticulously made, McCallum stops short of his work being entirely pre-planned, allowing for the freedom and kinetic energy that are so integral to his work.

Steve McCallum was born in Alliance, Ohio in 1951 and received his MFA from Kent State University in 1976. He has exhibited across the US and in Sweden, including at the Akron Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; the New York Institute of Technology, NY; Futura Gallery, and Stylt Gallery, Stockholm. McCallum has been honored with grants from the Gottlieb Foundation and the New York State Arts Council. His works are in numerous corporate collections as well as the Polk Museum of Art, FL; the Butler Institute of American Art, OH; and the San Diego Museum of Art, CA.