leaves of glass: Nothing But Paint: Jeanne Risica

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Nothing But Paint: Jeanne Risica

[“Shields” installation of various acrylic on canvas works (2009), Untitled IX (2009) acrylic on canvas. Untitled XIX (2009) acrylic on canvas. ]

While it closed on August 15, Jeanne Risica’s first solo exhibition at Dillon Gallery deserves a word here. Substantial work results in her casting of paint (acrylic, in particular) as a sculptural substance. Combine a cake swirl of cream with an uninterrupted swoosh of thick colored foam and what do you get? The resultant processes of “transcription” and “translation” bind color and texture “codons” into compelling two-dimensional works.

While compositional form subordinates color in Risica’s paintings, her resultant visual enigmas sustain suggestive, sensuous, aggressive, or even engaging sequences for the viewer to absorb. Accomplished by melding the paint to her canvases without a brush, Risica’s fundamental method often comes out looking like marzipan. Graffiti dollops, paint spills, and chromatic pools converge on a pure saturated field. Weighty and dense with hue, Risica’s technical surface manipulation brings the viewer full circle in a direct presentation of paint’s essential chemistry and gravity.

Coming forth as if white chocolate or petit fours mysteriously (or ominously, as the case may be) layered onto her paintings, Risica’s work has been exhibited internationally in such venues as Art Synergy (Bologna), Museum of San Felipe (Caracas), DongHo Gallery (Pusan), and Rhode Island’s Warwick Museum. As always, Risica (reviewed here in December 2006) blends visceral and cerebral elements into a larger work imbued with chromatic deftness.

Devoted to representation of international contemporary artists in various media, Dillon Gallery exhibits established, mid-career, and young emerging artists whose works convey Formalism and structure. This approach to visual content carries through and transcends various styles and media the gallery presents.

Recent Paintings: Jeanne Risica
@ Dillon Gallery
555 West 25th Street, NYC 10001
http://www.dillongallery.com/

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