Contributed by David Carrier / Just to the left of my writing desk is a painting of a magnificent tree with bright orange blossoms. Below it is a now faded postcard of a drawing of Barbara Westman, who died earlier this year at age 95, and her husband Arthur Danto […]
Contributed by Elizabeth Johnson / Two solo exhibitions at The Painting Center, Claire McConaughy’s “Uncultivated” and Tracy Burtz’s “What She Knows,” respectively present external and internal versions of powerful female spaces, generating an unexpected synthesis.
Contributed by Bill Arning / Kathy Butterly’s largest survey to date could, in theory, be boring. Thirty-five years of work in the same medium – highly glazed porcelain and earthenware – always at conspicuously small-scale, from four to 14 inches, might sound stultifying. You could perhaps imagine some visitors, having glanced at a sea of colored dots arranged on three massive irregular platforms in roughly chronological order, anticipating a hard slog and a rapid escape.
Painters Ezra Johnson and Matt Bollinger work across painting and handcrafted animation, and both are drawn to the textures of everyday American life — houses, haircuts, the quiet weight of ordinary moments. Two Coats of Paint invited the two to have a conversation on the occasion of their 2026 exhibitions: Johnson’s “Home and Garden Show” at Freight + Volume in New York, and Bollinger’s “Dawn” at mother’s tankstation in Dublin. The two artists speak here as peers, moving between close readings of each other’s work and reflections on their own practices. They discuss the relationship between painting and animation, the question of when a painting is “done,” and how handmade roughness can carry more truth than technical finish.