Joe Reihsen “Microclimates”

The Hole (86 Walker St.)

This event has ended.

The Hole presents its third solo exhibition of paintings by Joe Reihsen (b. 1979). The following essay by critic Janelle Zara exposes the energy and logic behind this bold and nuanced new series.

Imagine California on a map; its shape is defined by both the straight lines of manmade borders and the organic boundaries of coastline and river. Here, the artist’s task is one of similar world-building—the navigation of the canvas’s terrain, process of both yielding to existing contours and imparting his own painterly interventions.

In these new works, Reihsen uses water-based pigments to embed the physical properties of nature into the surface of the canvas, allowing the water to splash and pool according to the forces of gravity and the tension between liquid and fiber. The sheer deposits of color form a topography of islands, fault lines and other abstracted landmasses for the artist to either follow or traverse with his brush.

Reihsen’s second application of paint is in many ways an inversion of the first; it’s oil where the other is water; opaque where the other is sheer; bright where the other is muted; applied by brush rather than by chance. The mark-making however is as much in dialogue as it is in opposition, striking a balance of opposing wills. Horizontal brushstrokes impose order on the land, using the weft of the canvas as an organizing principle, then where the brush meets the land’s chaotic edges, the order frays, deferring instead to the will of the coastline.

The work nods to both the gestural fluidity of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak stains and Etel Adnan’s distillation of the landscape into jubilant blocks of color. Note that although this is a new process within the artist’s practice, it embodies signature features of previous bodies of work. These include dramatized sensations of distance and depth and where areas of paint appear to recede beyond the physical plane of the canvas.

Note also that these hand-painted elements meet at soft but deliberate edges, cut organically by the artist’s handling of the brush rather than the sharp edges of masking tape. These edges are the meeting of friendly territories rather than hostile borders. Compositions within compositions. Microclimates. Regional dialogues. In his ongoing exploration of abstraction as a reflection of nature, Reihsen embraces the inherent and material properties of paint. Where it moves on its own accord, the painter follows.

– Janelle Zara

Joe Reihsen (b. 1979, Minnesota) holds an MFA from UC Santa Barbara and lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had two prior solo exhibitions at The Hole, About Face (2016) and Structural Color (2018), in addition to solo shows with Praz-Delavallade in Paris, LA and Brussels; Brand New Gallery in Milan; and Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles. Past group shows include NEXT at Arsenal in Montreal, What’s Up with Lawrence van Hagen in London and Post Analog Painting at The Hole. Additionally his work has been exhibited at art fairs around the world. All have established Reihsen as an important new voice in abstract painting.