Work featured at Untitled Art Fair | NOV 29 – DEC 4, 2016
Please visit us at Johansson Projects, booth # D26
UNTITLED ART FAIR MIAMI BEACH 2016
Art Market San Francisco with Johansson Projects, April 27th-May 1st
Mirage reviewed on squarecylinder.com
Mirage, Solo Exhibition featuring new work at Johansson Projects, Oakland, ca
visit gallery website
show runs march 26 - june 11, 2016
A straight crisp line, a clear division of light and dark, cuts across a rich surface formed by two asymmetrically scaled canvases. This singularity, however, does not exist. It is a greater sum of parts. Washes of acrylic media combined with charcoal and earth based pigments stain and seemingly patina these canvases that provide a monolithic ground for compositional activity. Hand drawn charcoal lines span this ground, repeated to the verge of nullification. Through the shutters of these lines a simple but striking form emerges, divulging multi-faceted intricacies.
In Mirage Blaise Rosenthal uses both the vocabulary and physicality of painting to create work of a rugged elegance. The works in this show make no attempt to foster certainty. Instead they press upon the boundaries of contemporary painting by exploring the potentials of form and frame, and invite viewers to enter a state of wonder.
Catching up with New American Paintings
One of the most gratifying aspects of publishing New American Paintings over the years has been watching our alumni go on to accomplish great things. The publication's history is replete with artists who were featured early in their careers that have gone on to become nationally and, in some cases, internationally recognized artists. Among them are individuals such as Iona Rozeal Brown, William Cordova, Amy Cutler, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Matthew Day Jackson, Eddie Martinez, Allison Schulnik and James Siena. At the end of the day, New American Paintings' number one goal is to offer deserving artists a vehicle though which there work can be discovered by an engaged and geographically diverse audience.
Since 2010, New American Paintings has awarded an annual prize to one of the two hundred and forty artists featured in that calendar year's six issues (look for our 2015 poll in the next week). In 2014, the winner of that prize was self-taught artist, Blaise Rosenthal, whose dusky, minimal abstractions draw more from his personal experiences and the American landscape then they do art historical precedent. I ran into Rosenthal's work on my annual visit to the Miami art fairs in early December. As I walked down an aisle of the UNTITLED art fair, there they were in the distance. I recognized them instantly, which, in today's overcrowded and homogenized art world really says something. It may sound trite, but these paintings have genuine presence and are clearly made by an artist who is actively searching...who is digging in the dirt. There is no artifice, or pretense to them.
As it happens, the reason Rosenthal's paintings were on view at UNTITLED is that Oakland based gallery Johannson Projects had recently discovered the work in New American Paintings. By all accounts, the relationship between Johannson and Rosenthal has turned into one that has been mutually beneficial. I had the chance to speak with Rosenthal at UNTITLED, and subsequently reached out to ask him some additional questions about his work and practice. Our conversation can be found here. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher
Untitled Art Fair with Johansson Projects, Miami Beach, 2015
Untitled Art Fair with Johansson Projects, Miami Beach, 2015
