Julian Bell & Eleanor Ray "Paintings"
steven harvey fine art projects
This event has ended.
In the front gallery, are paintings by the British art historian and painter Julian Bell (grandson of the Bloomsbury group painter Vanessa Bell). Well known in England for his art criticism, Bell is also a painter of considerable gifts. This is the first time his paintings have been shown in New York in over 30 years.
Bell paints both scenes form daily life—shoppers caught amongst glossy magazine racks or the base of a modern building—and perplexing fictional scenarios, such as a man climbing a scaffold on the edge of a town in Uzbekistan. Bell’s work unfolds in strange details like a short story whose narrative is never quite grasped. As Bell puts it, “I embrace the currents of narrative and invite them to course through my canvases. Why turn your back on storytelling when it's the mainstream of human self-understanding?” The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog with text by art historian David Carrier.
In the rear gallery, the gallery presents recent work by painter Eleanor Ray. A recent graduate of the New York Studio School MFA program, this is her first solo exhibition in a New York gallery. Ray’s miniature paintings play with the tropes of painterly representation. Derived from photography, they carry a force that extends beyond their small scale. Her depictions of snowy tennis courts and sparse interiors suggest space that is both intimate and expansive. Bell’s direct and concise brushwork is exquisitely scaled to her pictures’ dimension. The reductive juxtapositions of elements in her paintings often suggests a dry sense of humor and voyeurism –like peering out of a window or through a doorway into a place we already know.
[Image: Julian Bell "He Climb the Stairs (2011) 36 x 42 in.]
Media
Schedule
from February 13, 2013 to March 17, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-02-13 from 18:00 to 20:00