NEW YORK, NY.- In the act of creation there are no straight lines, no easy answers, rather there is a process of foraging, a journey of trial and error, informed by years of experience. It takes courage to deviate from the linear path, to venture into unfamiliar territory, to experiment, pose new questions and create new obstacles, and then seek to resolve them - or not. Though we may live in a technologically dominated world, the practice of being an artisan, the use of hands, and the cherishing of craft, is still key. NFTs, AI, and 3D printing, all seek to supplant the practice of being an artisan as irrelevant.

All of the artists in this exhibition take singular pleasure in the investigation of materials and their application. Charles Alston’s use of ochre in “Abstract #3” gives a warm and earthy grit to the dynamic angularity of his gestures. Sam Middleton conceals found printed material in “The Search”, so that the signage is rendered mute and abstract, lending only texture and the suggestion of content to the surface of the painting. The artist Dan Christensen explored a variety of unconventional techniques for paint application throughout his career, including the use of ‘blasters, rollers, squeegees, industrial brushes, brooms, and weedsprayers’ one former gallerist lists. In the vertical painting “Cancun”, a white orb appears to roll away on a nearly figurative ground, like a ball on a pool table, then a floating block of color, peachy-burnt orange layered over white, flattens out the picture plane, and a series of his sprayed signature loops energetically crown the top half in radiating white that takes on a neon tinge atop the purplish-black background. The result feels like a punk rock remix of an Adolph Gottlieb.

Other artists included use materials that diffuse light and increase the depth of pigment, or use layering techniques to create surfaces alternately tactile or atmospheric or luminescent. There is an element of transformation latent in the finished objects of art.

“I search for ways of combining and activating color, material, and surface to create distinct visual events that exist in the potency of their own presence, that call attention to the present moment. This endeavor is endlessly difficult and engaging, and requires an inclusive empathy that, for me, is humanity at its most poetic.” - Steven Alexander

Spanierman Modern
Artistry and Alchemical Process
October 5th, 2023 - November 11th, 2023