Amy Sillman

For those who live under a rock, Amy Sillman has a new show up at

Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Video courtesy of James Kalm - it's the next

best thing to being there. Thank you James.

A few gems

Untitled

"Untitled"

acrylic on wood

30x40cm

2010

Vincent Hawkins

"Are You Lost"

55 x 45 cm

acrylic on canvas

2009

Scraped, squeegeed, glazed, covered, recovered, scumbled and scratched. Just a few verbs to describe the playful approach to paint by these two different but equally strong abstract artists. Great stuff and a joy to stumble on such interesting work. Both artists are English, I believe. Click on their names to check out their wares. Vincent Hawkins has a blog (you must look at his inks on paper too) and Untitled, who keeps a painting diary, is currently anon.

Gemma Smith

Baraba 2009 acrylic on board 34 x 27.5cm

Soft Battle 2010 acrylic on board 27.5 x 34cm

Images from: Sarah Cottier gallery

Is anybody out there feeling the love for abstraction in Sydney this month? I am, because Gemma Smith is showing her colourful abstracts at Sarah Cottier Gallery until April 1st. These are process paintings that harness fresh, clean palettes and bold, confident brush strokes in which thin washy marks meet smoothed out blocks of masking shapes or lines; they are entirely seductive and beg to be gazed at. I'm planning to get down to the gallery next weekend to do just that.

Gemma Smith is a featuring artist in this months Art Sydney 2010. This exciting first time event is hopefully doing good things for artists, galleries and the public's appreciation of art in general.

ETA: Gemma Smith talked about her show Sudden Double last weekend. Here's a summary.

Scott Richter

Scott Richter

Cluttertrap 2008

oil paint medium on carpet

15"x16"

Image from: Elizabeth Harris Gallery

Scott Richter's work is steeped in the language of paint - paint as subject; what it does, how it feels and how it can totally involve the senses of the viewer. For me I think my taste buds have reacted accordingly. Yum. Scott Richter concerns himself with the process and material of painting.

Anyway, here are some links to folk who have actually seen the show:

Joanne mattera art blog

great video by James Kalm

Mali Morris

Bird Ghost - 2007

122 cm x 153 cm

acrylic on canvas

Image: courtesy of artist

Buried Scarlet - 2009

26 cm x 31 cm

acrylic on canvas

Image: courtesy of artist

It's official. It seems I have been living under a rock - otherwise, how else is it possible for me to have missed the wonderful, luminous works of the London painter Mali Morris. Really, these are so breath taking. Look at them; simple, clean colours that sing, generous brush work, fresh surfaces that are deep enough to dive into, yet never overworked - these are the works of a longstanding gifted and intelligent painter; they provoke a conversation between the viewer and the paint.

Predominately working small with acrylic on canvas, Mali Morris' process might resemble that of an excavator - starting with the application of rectangles of colours, overlaying these with lush broad strokes of colour glazes and then wiping away parts to reveal what lies beneath. With her process Mali Morris seeks to find rather than add colour. It's a delight to see a painter who can balance bright geometric forms with gestural abstraction and be able to pull the two formal elements together with such ease. I'm so enthralled that I've immediately ordered the latest issue of Turps Banana which features an essay about Mali's work by Peter Suchin. (There's also an interview with Thomas Nozkowski!)

Mali Morris is a painter who makes you think about paint, and whose paint asks you to think about light. She is not concerned with making paintings represent recognisable objects, but the world, through light effects, is in her paintings... Her paintings are alive not just to a history of abstraction, but in a dialogue with her own method of experimentation. The issues seem to be light and rhythm, and what painting is - From the catalogue essay ‘Strange Links: Giude to Morris'2008, by Matthew Collings, artist, writer, critic & broadcaster; author of This is Civilisation 2008 Read more here

I could not have put it better myself.

Anthony White

Anthony White

Rendezvous

2009

oil on linen

51 x 51cm

Image from: Iain Dawson Gallery

Anthony White's Paris Paintings are on show 2 - 13 Feb 2010 at Iain Dawson Gallery, Sydney.

'The work in this exhibition was made in residence at Australia's Storrier Onslow Studio, at the Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris. This studio award, enable me to paint and live in Paris for three months.

The architectural surfaces of Paris are laden with centuries of graffiti, posters, filth and humanity. The works draw upon these references and the sense of transience, the passing of time, the organis and the antique' Anthony White - 2010

A muse - part 2

Al Taylor

MTAMBO: A Trap with a Spring Action

1982

Acrylic paint on linen-backed paper

(24.8 x 20.3 cm)

Image from: David Zwirner Gallery - New York