Author Archives: Linnea

Pat Steir’s Winter Paintings at Cheim & Read

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I wish I had had a camera with me for the opening of Pat Steir’s Winter Paintings at Cheim & Read, so that I could show you up close how well the layers of rich colors overlay each other in these two-tone canvases.

Her latest waterfall paintings–note the textured drippage–use a lot of metallics. The gold felt especially luxuroius. Waterfalls where paint is dripped and poured down the canvas have been a signature of the artist’s since the 80s. The layering gives a real saturated and deep coloring to these large canvases, and the waterfall effect encourages contemplation.

Compared to the Nearly Endless Line exhibition of the artist’s I saw about a month ago, these seem remarkably traditional works, but they remain immersive and focused with an in interest in subtle manipulation of one or two elements.

Coke Wisdom O’Neal’s Boxed in Nudes

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Installation view, Blue Nude

Coke Wisdom O’Neal has a really nice photography show up at Mixed Greens in Chelsea at the moment. Continuing his work with boxes, he photograped his subjects inside tight, clear plexiglass boxes and them mounted the prints with a plexiglass frame that mimics the models enclosure in the image. The result is beautifully fleshly and vulnerable. Rarely does one see faces, and the focus turns more onto the hands or hips of the person. There is a great luminous quality to the skin tones that really adds to the little details: the little rolls of a sotmach or the wrinkles of an arched foot.

I love see the flesh pressed against the glass, reminding one that these contorted figures are indeed contained. Its makes for a nice study of the human form, although within the models limp poses it suggests more along the lines of captivity and restraint, freedom and identity than pure aesthetic study.

Installation View, Blue Nude

The single figures also speak of lonliness.