Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Embraces Abstract Paintings

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] presents southwestNET: painting—a new exhibition that explores the rich and complex context of contemporary abstract painting with artists whose work embraces the romance of painting today without the cynicism that burdened painters of previous generations.  Using vivid color, intricate compositions and innovative techniques; the artists open up to the possibilities of the medium of paint in refreshing ways.  The work featured demonstrates the vibrancy and validity found in the renewed energy and its ability to push the boundaries of technique and composition.  These compositions touch on questions of restriction and freedom while making connections among sensibilities rather than styles.

This exhibition includes works that have been meticulously constructed juxtaposed with works whose makers have allowed chance and intuition to guide their creative process.  Organized by SMoCA assistant curator Cassandra Coblentz, southwestNET: painting features six painters including Linda Besemer (Los Angeles, CA), Jane Callister (Santa Barbara, CA), Stan Kaplan (Los Angeles, CA,) Henry Schoebel (Phoenix, AZ ) Lisa Marie Sipe (Phoenix, AZ) and Thomas Walsh (Houston, TX). On exhibition 16 September until 28 January, 2007.

Using oil, acrylic, resin and encaustic, the artists in southwest NET: painting reflect distinct attitudes regarding the material qualities of paint and color.  While Stan Kaplan’s bold colors and marks are dynamic and expressive, his thin layers of oil paint cause the surface of his canvases to remain smooth.  This contrast between gesture and physical weight enables him to play with traditional notions of deep pictorial space.  Jane Callister also encourages viewers to indulge in pictorial space, generated by her candy-colored flowing pools of vibrant color.  Her splashing technique emphasizes the fluidity of acrylic paint and maintains viewers’ attention on the surface of these apocalyptic “landscapes.”  Using encaustic paint to interpret abstracted forms and shapes from nature, Lisa Marie Sipe relishes the capacity of the waxy material to trap color and light.  Thomas Walsh’s compositions consist of two layers of shapes superimposed on one another.  His camouflage-like patterned mosaic compositions of flat, interlocking, tiny color fields float above the organic wood-grain of his birch ground.

This sense of carefully ordered layering comes into play for Henry Schoebel and Linda Besemer as well.  Schoebel fastidiously traces his process on the surface of the canvas using hundreds of translucent brush strokes to explore painted space.  Besemer carries even further the idea that each layer inhabits space by constructing her paintings out of the paint itself, with no additional support—the paint provides both the visual and the structural components.  All of these artists provide refreshing responses to the age-old question of the relationship between the figure and the ground.

This exhibition is part of SMoCA’s ongoing southwestNET series which focuses on contemporary art of the Southwest region including both emerging artists and those of international notoriety, living and working in Arizona, Texas and California. Artist Linda Besemer has received wide international acclaim including numerous publications and reviews in Art in America, Frieze, and The New York Times.  Jane Callister’s artistic career also continues to build momentum: art critic David Pagel recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Callister “transforms the illusionistic space of painting into an eye-popping celebration of gravity-defying dynamics and time-warping speed.”

The exhibition creates a spectrum bracketed by gestural spontaneity on one end and methodical construction on the other; colors and materials swinging between natural and artificial; all elements riding the precarious edge between order and chaos.  The artists of southwestNET: painting use the medium of paint as potential to express the tensions of our volatile world.  In this way, meaning becomes as fluid and expansive as their medium.

ABOUT SMoCA

Founded in 1999, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] is the only museum in Arizona devoted to the art, architecture and design of our time.  Global in its focus, the Museum is a unique and vital cultural resource for the Southwest, serving local audiences as well as visitors from throughout the United States and abroad.

Visit Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] at : http://www.smoca.org/