NYAB Event - "of Certain Instability" Exhibition

"of Certain Instability" Exhibition

Thomas Erben Gallery

This event has ended.

These painters use enjoyable colors, accessible geometric shapes veering into the anthropomorphic and repertoire abstract styles, resulting in seemingly welcoming works. Once granted full attention, however, they deny customary viewing habits and familiarity, expanding our relationship with painting.

Whitney Claflin’s (b. 1983, Providence, RI) chest-sized abstractions integrate collage elements (stitching, jewelry, newspaper, clothing) with paint transferred from paper and plastic onto fabric, as a distancing process. Claflin’s works, which at first glance might appear to lack stability, are in fact held together by subtle, compulsively used elements. A draped necklace here, an earring hoop there, a bit of thread or a spot of glitter combine to allude to an ad-hoc way of living. With clothing and jewelry as metonyms, each work becomes a dressed character - some have secrets, some are ready to "hit the town." Mobilizing the colorful excess Claflin encounters in her Chinatown studio surroundings, by mixing handmade and readymade objects, she invites the viewer to grasp onto certain signifiers within a disorienting context. This internal tension grants agency to fall in and out of stride with the works, building meaning based on cumulative ways of looking.

Harriet Korman’s (b. 1947, Bridgeport, CT) paintings are almost stubbornly non-figurative, refusing to submit to any persuasion of naturalistic illusions. Using bold, solid colors, sometimes transected by lines of varying character, she divides the canvas into fields and geometric shapes, giving each color block the opportunity to interact with others. Though Korman’s work is grounded in Modernist abstraction, she adds elements of irregular unpredictability, creating a slight but crucial imbalance in each piece. Viewers are continuously forced to revalue their impression, trying to find equilibrium among decisive but unstable fields.

The polite palette, easy forms and generously applied paint of Nolan Simon (b. 1980, Detroit, MI) lend his work an immediate pleasantness. He uses smile forms, dots, and “sausage” shapes, often piping with white or beige caulk to create thick, sculpted lines, which sit upon thin oil paint washes or bare, primed canvas. Occasionally Simon will integrate text, such as “Excuse Me” or “Yes!” contributing to the works’ friendly disposition. In fact, these sparse canvases challenge the viewer to dislike them and, through this lack of compliance, become mischievous – are you supposed to like his work? And what if you do? This negotiation/re-negotiation cycle with the viewer is what keeps Simon’s seemingly effortless paintings on a precarious edge: falling neither into cheeky nor saccharine territory.

Simon received his BFA in 2005 from the College for Creative Studies.

Hans-Peter Thomas (Bara) (b. 1968, Bonn, Germany) demonstrates an interest in grids and shelving as comparative devices, as if systematically displaying a personal set of symbols and objects for the viewer to inspect. This selection of paintings is comprised of sprawling, superimposed grids populated by rectangles of bright color, teeth and head shapes, as well as actual physical objects such as rubber masks and perfume bottles. The color and images create a crowded cacophony of items to interpret and synthesize into workable information. Arrows hint at relationships between the objects depicted, but rather than being helpful and clarifying, they add further to the confusion. And as much as items are sorted into neat boxes, there is a competing impulse striving toward disorder, tilting and overturning stable structures and tipping the paintings into a state of perilous balance.

Thomas graduated from the Art Academy of Munich in 1997.

Claflin received her BFA from RISD, 2005, and her MFA from Yale in 2009.