Opening Reception
May 27, 5-7pm May 23 - Jun 24, 2011
A painting exhibition curated by Emma Balázs
LeRoy Neiman Gallery
Columbia University School of the Arts
Artists: Julia Benjamin,Guy Ben-Ari, Sebastian Black, Jeremy Couillard, Matthew Fischer, Nora Griffin, Kristina Lee, Rory Parks, Matthew Watson, Leah Wolff
The time of painting is like the time of dreaming. It is impossible to define the contours of a beginning or ending. The moment of creation seems to flow into the aftermath of analysis, edging its way towards an elusive understanding. What does that mark mean to me? Is it “true” to myself? Why did I just paint that word? Is that an image of the city, or it just a lump of pigment? The artist is alone in a room with a few tools and surfaces to work with. For dreamer and artist, it all comes down to the moment of waking. The “stop” point that will allow for the work to coalesce and form into the image or story that remains.
The paintings in Tigers in Red Weather all sit on that elusive line between waking and sleeping. Some have a greater aspiration to explain themselves as pieces of a narrative, while others are content in their blunt object hood. The baroque detail of a stranger’s face sits near abstract images that evoke a specific place in the world. While other paintings aspire to be pure worlds unto themselves. The surfaces (linen, canvas, wood panel, paper, ceramic, metal) are all hard won choices that make sense for each work. A serious playfulness is out in full force, a quiet and powerful determination to rebuild the castle wall, brick by brick.
--Nora Griffin