Contributed by John Fritsch and Jen Pepper / Shari Urquhart, artist and educator, died on November 21, 2020. She was born in Racine, Wisconsin and grew up in Kenosha, just a few miles south. Although her first media were painting and printmaking, she ultimately found her true medium in fiber to express her take on popular culture and art history.
Throughout the last decade, Robert completed over one hundred and fifty paintings in a limited palette ranging from white to soft gray to black, often incorporating raw canvas or linen as a compositional element of the work.
Contributed by Carol Diamond / Admired and respected by her artistic community, beloved by friends and family, Lynn Kotula passed away in February 2021, after living with stage IV cancer for more than six years. The following is a 2022 catalogue essay written by John Goodrich on the occasion of “Lynn Kotula: A Life in Painting 1984–2020,” her final exhibition at Bowery Gallery.
Contributed by Bill Arning / Sometimes the architecture of an exhibition space draws out qualities in an artist’s work that might remain latent elsewhere. Katherine Umsted is a familiar presence in the Hudson Valley art scene, known for an overflowing aesthetic of massive, boat-like vessels on the verge of collapse, constructed from rough-and-ready materials that could evidence a 2026 reincarnation of Arte Povera. It is hard to imagine a less suitable setting for such work than…
Contributed by Natasha Sweeten / Maureen Dougherty brings her paintings to life with quiet assurance. For “The Completionists,” her current exhibition at Mendes Wood DM in Germantown, she presents portraits of solitary collectors showcasing their collections in muted yet elegant tones not unlike Luc Tuymans’, with dabs of paint nestled into shadows and on tips of asparagus. Objects such as dog figurines, serving dishes, Picasso’s ceramics, skulls, and books are dutifully balanced on horizontal bands of shelving stretching across the picture plane, providing a fixed compositional framework. Perhaps Dougherty’s years of working in abstraction cultivated the acuity and freedom in her brushstroke. Nearly every one of the nine paintings on view fills the expanse of canvas as if to suggest that we’ve zoomed in on a larger presentation, singling out this particular person with this particular array of belongings while also understanding the moment as memory.
Contributed by Rick Briggs / If I’m being completely honest, for years I never completely got the work of Anke Weyer. Sure, she’s always had all the right moves – bold color, loose paint handling, and a juicy surface, all of which gave her work directness, spontaneity, and immediacy – but something felt off. The color was mostly discordant, and the gesture appeared merely aggressive, with an attitude that seemed anarchistic, almost like a form of punk nihilism. My perception began to change with “Nocturnes,” Weyer’s 2024 show at CANADA. I noticed the paintings began to slow down with masses of organic color shapes in works like Lucky, Sleepless and Monster.