Sadie Benning at Callicoon Fine Arts

I believe my first interaction with Sadie Benning's work was in the original building of Callicoon Fine Arts on Forsyth Street in the Lower East Side. I was doing the regular gallery hop, and happened by this tiny space with these great new edged paintings. Mostly shapes, flags, all put together in this very cool and interesting manner. Instead of canvas, these are all made from plywood that was cut into the design she wished, and then carefully painted and put back together. Simple concept, totally NOT simple in the actual making of it.

My recent NYC trip, I was out on a Sunday, which BTW is a GREAT day to gallery hop in the LES of NY. Very few people around, much less tourists running in and out, snapping a few selfies and then leaving, onto the next space. Delancey Street is quite the busy street, except for galleries, there are very few on that street, another recently moved further east, but that's another story. Callicoon has been on Delancy for a couple years now in a much bigger venue for their artists, and it has showed in the quality and grandness of their exhibitions. Sadie is my personal favorite of their artists. We all have favorites and it's not bad to mention that one is your favorite. Her work has a directness to it, it's immediate but there is also the underlying sense of much more going on than what you immediately see. I recall taking in the craft of how she cuts all the ply up and then assembles it back together into these wonderfully playful paintings. I made sure to get some pics of details I feel will help you, the online viewer, get a better sense of what her work looks like in person. I dig the new designs she is coming up with, though the funny face was a bit kitschy for my tastes, I feel the sunset was my personal favorite work in the exhibition. I think her designing of landscape is something I would love to see more of. But her talent of coaxing imagery from a plywood panel in such a lyrical but calculated way is one that is supremely hers and I believe will keep her name on people's lists for many decades.

The exhibition runs at Callicoon Fine Arts until July 29th, 2016, so you have plenty of time to see it for yourself. 49 Delancey Street. NY.

Looking at details, I can see underpainting and I wonder if this painting was originally multicolored, or was just another monochrome that was eventually repainted to it's final state. Either way, it's a powerful painting.

Thanks for reading. Jeffrey Collins

Kissed by the Sun

I came back from visiting some galleries today to find this happening on my painting. So naturally I grabbed my cameraphone and got some pics. Thankfully this new cameraphone is so much better than my i-4 which stunk for taking pics of dominantly red paintings. This LGG4 is much better at it. Click on the images to open them larger. I hope one day you too will be able to have this experience with your and with my work.

Cheers to all.

Painting is:
05-16-2016
36X48 Inches
91.44X121.92CM
Acrylic on Acrylic Yarn on Painted Wood Chassis.

Pink Time!

Toward the end of 2015 I had a desire to bring PINK into my work. It began with 01-14-2016 and continued with these two paintings below. The pink idea came from a Jonathan Lasker show at Cheim & Read Gallery in NYC, I saw this one painting by him and it gave me an urge to go pink for a while. When I think about these three paintings, actually two when it comes to actual pink paint, I burnt myself out on pink. Guess it was a culmination of a number of factors, but I won't bother you with that.

02-21-2016
22 X 16IN
Acrylic on Acrylic Yarn on Painted Wood Chassis

02-27-2016
22 X 16IN

Acrylic on Acrylic Yarn on Painted Wood Chassis

This is one of the few paintings I have made with 2 colors of yarn over the chassis. I don't do that much but I always seem to like it's flavor.

As always, click on the images to open them larger.

Blackening the beginning of the new year...

01-14-2016
22 X 16 IN
55.88X40.64 CM
Coal Mixed Acrylic on Acrylic Yarn on Painted Wood Chassis

First painting of 2016, continuing the idea of using Coal from the region I was living in as an additive to the paint. This painting was done quite different from the one in 2015, I only mixed the Coal in with the texture instead of dropping the coal on top of the already painted substrate. I decided the previous painting had so much coal on it that it became a bit of a kitschy visual statement. Too out front instead of subtle which is what I work to accomplish in these paintings, a powerful tension and release, but with subtle associations to dimensionality and the void. Maybe even not with the void, but something much less talked about, the INTERIOR. Since most painters only deal with the surface, and use that to talk about voids, but what I bring to you is a REAL VOID, which I simply refer to as the INTERIOR.

This is one of 4 paintings all begun at the same time, all the same size and scale. They began as a statement on pink, but over time, only three have stayed that way. The fourth is being worked on as I type. Wrapping began today, black over Quin Violet, which is one of my favorite colors, but also one of the colors I very rarely work on. I like it so much I never want to try to overdo it with paintings in that color. White and Black are the two colors I can seem to make 100's of paintings in without getting tired of it, maybe it has to do with what scientists refer to as NON-COLORS. Which I personally think is bullshit, they are born of pigments, which means they ARE colors. They have to be born somewhere.

Thanks! Enjoy the imagery, click the images and they will open much larger, if you save them to your hard drive, they will be saved even larger. Swim in the details.

LONG LIVE THE INTERIOR!!!!!

Jeffrey Collins

Last of 2015

As I remember the ending of 2015. I believe painting wise, it ended on a seriously positive move.

Henceforth........ http://www.jeffreycollins.us/2015.html

Work number 3 in my continued work with the primaries. I love working with red, yellow, and blue, but I don't want a reference to Barnett Newman, even though all my painting colleagues can't help but make the reference. Click on the pics for larger more detailed views. Enjoy!

along with.....

#2 is my first painting I made with crushed coal included in it. The coal came from a friends house in the surrounding Tamaqua area where coal is pretty much everywhere. I felt like doing a few of these types of paintings and this was the first. The first painting from 2016 is also made with that same crushed coal, it's just not as caked on as the above painting. It felt good to have that painting finally done, as it was once finished but the black and white color scheme just didn't work, so I am glad to finally have this one complete. I was originally looking for a silver texture to use as background, but as I was making the silvery paint, it simply wasn't working the way I was making it, so you CAN see a little bit of silvery texture behind all the black, but you really have to get in there and look.

09-24-2015

09-24-2015 is the title of the newest painting of mine. The second using Fluorescent paint for the chassis. This painting measuring 66 X 41.5 Inches is what has become one of my favorite sizes of paintings. It's right between Institutional size and residential size. Just easy enough to move around on my own but also being just bigger than a regular human. Giving one the sense of calling it "Human Sized" and being correct. Fluorescent Red chassis really makes the whole painting vibrate, playing off the white of the yarn and the play of white over yellow acrylic paint. So much to look at visually, the variations of play upon the eye are almost literally endless. There are so many viewpoints to take into account when viewing a painting like this. I even lay on the floor and look from as far down as I can get, compounded with Dirk Serries Microphonics music, the sensation is just one of visual bliss to me. This is the first painting I have completed since June and I must say Thank You to all that helped keep me going in this time. Here's to looking forward to the future. All my best to you!

And for a little bit of Dirks music...

Stephen Maine @ Hionas Gallery

I was granted the opportunity to visit the season openers for the NY art world last week. In my personal opinion Stephen Maine at Hionas was THE exhibition to see. The sublime is still around and Maine is clearly finding it in these paintings. Unfortunately I am late on my writing about this wonderful exhibition as it is coming down very very soon. If I were living in the NYC area, I would have been down to see these paintings at least once a week. Truly a painter who deserves a lot more attention, and hopefully this exhibition is going to do just that. Seeing the two large format paintings in the front room, last few pics in this group, you are really taken in by them. They really push themselves onto you the viewer. Almost all large format paintings have some sense of power to them, but not all of them give off the sensation of desiring to jump into them.

Check it out here. The photos can be clicked and enlarged.

The two paintings in the front room, below. I am looking forward to seeing how Maine pushes his future paintings and how the extra space opens them up to all kinds of possibilities. This exhibition deserves to be witnessed in person.

Cheers.

Jeffrey