Nov. 16, 2009 – Jan. 10, 2010

Surveying the Shifting Climate of Painting in South Florida

Cover image: Craig Kucia, it was like the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs (detail), 2009, Oil on canvas, 54 x 54 in., Courtesy of the artist and Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Cleveland.

Left: Lilian Garcia-Roig, Hyperbolic Nature: Florida Vines, 2008, 5 x 8 ft., Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami.

Below: Guerra de la Paz, Carmen (from the series - Friends and Family), 2007, Acrylic on linen, 16 x 12 in., Courtesy of the artist and Carol Jazzar Contemporary Art, Miami.

Participating Artists

Harumi Abe

Farley Aguilar

Kevin Arrow

Bhakti Baxter

Loriel Beltran

Pip Brant

David Brieske

Timothy Buwalda

Julie Davidow

Ivan Toth Depeña

Eugenio Espinosa

Lilian Garcia-Roig

Lynne Gelfman

Mike Genovese

Mark Gibson

Karen Starosta-Gilinski

Jacin Giordano

Francie Bishop Good

Aramis Gutierrez

Guerra de la Paz

Richard Haden

Jason Hedges

Craig Kucia

Natalya Laskis

Nicolas Lobo

Pepe Mar

Jordan Massengale

Raul Mendez

Beatriz Monteavaro

Gean Moreno

Daniel Newman

Glexis Novoa

Ray Olivero

Skot Olsen

Brandon Opalka

Ernesto Oroza

Perry Pandrea

Raul Perdomo

Gavin Perry

Vickie Pierre

Oliver Sanchez

Asser Saint Val

Diego Singh

Nancy Spielman

Alex Sweet

Runcie Tatnall

Kristen Thiele

Mette Tommerup

Kiki Valdes

Marcos Valella

Michael Vasquez

Agatha Wara

Chuck Webster

Michelle Weinberg

John Zoller

TIME + TEMP: Surveying the Shifting Climate of Painting in South Florida

Nov. 16, 2009 – Jan. 10, 2010Opening Reception: Fri., Nov. 20, 6 – 9 pm

This exhibition presents a survey of dynamic

work by a selection of South Florida-based

artists who embrace and incorporate aspects

of painting into their practice. A resurgence

of painterly tendencies is currently taking

hold among artists on a national and

international level. Its growing appeal is also

evident within our region’s ever-expanding

contemporary art community. On view is

work by approximately 50 artists who are

investigating and pushing the prevailing

definitions of painting. Boundaries of form

have been expanded through a variety

of techniques, utilizing a broad range of

materials. Some pieces have been created

specifically for this exhibit, yet are made

with media other than traditional pigment-

based paint on canvas. Representation and

abstraction continue to be very much at

the forefront of this genre. However, issues

which have dominated painterly themes

such as color, surface, narrative and gesture

are finding new expressions in a variety of

unconventional and energized styles. Our

tropical, lush, and organic environment,

intersected by gleaming architectonic towers

of light, glass, and concrete sets the stage

for fertile and flowing currents of invention,

which are reflected in this array of works.

The majority of pieces in the exhibition

feature some type of representational

imagery. That said, narrative and non-

narrative depictions of figures, structures,

nature, Pop iconography, and other forms

of representation vary dramatically. At

the heart of compelling canvases by Craig

Kucia, Harumi Abe, Raul Mendez, and

Aramis Gutierrez are moments that, while

narrative in nature, are isolated fragments

in non-linear story-telling. The viewer is

intended to bring their own associations and

memory to complete the open-ended plot.

Farley Aguilar, Asser Saint Val, and John

Zoller’s dramatically different aesthetics and

approaches each incorporate overarching

themes which dictate the nature of their

individual subject matter, characters,

environment, and the thread of continuity

that flows throughout their work. Myriad

forms of Pop Culture iconography and

imagery is embedded in the work of various

artists, including Beatriz Monteavaro’s

fascination with horror movie imagery, Kevin

Arrow’s brightly colored mandalas that

incorporate Mickey Mouse and other cartoon

characters, and both Kristen Thiele and

Oliver Sanchez’ individual reinterpretation of

vintage stock photography depicting bygone

eras. Masterfully gestural painting of people,

places, and things, in which the subject

becomes a vehicle for powerful flourishes

of brushwork, color, form, and line, are

embodied in the work of Lillian Garcia Roig,

Mette Tommerup, Michael Vasquez, Jordan

Massengale, Brandon Opalka, Timothy

Buwalda, and newcomers Runcie Tatnall and

Natalya Laskis.

“Painting” finds new form through

unconventional approaches and use of

unorthodox materials. One example of

this “out of the box” approach is Nicolas

Lobo’s site-specific mixed media piece Cereal

Pyramid. To make this work, Lobo utilized

crushed multicolored kid’s cereal combined in

a mixture with Elmer’s Glue that he applied

in an abstract geometric configuration

onto the gallery wall. Jason Hedges, whose

artistic practice is consistently fueled by

consumable substances like wine and food,

presents a minimalist composition made up

entirely of peppercorns—a commodity with

socio-political and historic significance. The

variation in color and texture of the pepper

dictates the painting’s surface. Gean Moreno

and Ernesto Oroza have collaborated on a

new series of site-specific installations made

of newsprint panels with abstract graphics

printed on them. The sheets of paper are

hung in a grid with the pattern’s repetition

creating a geometric design as a layer upon

which to place other work. Similarly layering

images over an extent field is Michelle

Weinberg’s Backdrop, a large-scale gouache

playfully simulating a three-dimensional

space upon which smaller paintings done in

the same style are hung.

Numerous other artists are further exploring

a wealth of diverse materials and inventive

approaches for their creation of painting.

Richard Haden has been producing a

series of painting/sculpture hybrids which

employ a combination of painstakingly

detailed processes to arrive at trompe l’oeil

depictions of mundane objects such as

refrigerator doors, fire extinguishers, and

random car parts. Meticulously carved from

wood, the perfectly proportioned forms

Above: Mark Gibson, Last Cave, 2009, Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in., Courtesy of the artist and Twenty/Twenty Projects, Hialeah.

Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza, Taboid (Diagram) [with painting by Bhakti Baxter], 2009, Newspaper, shown installed as wallpaper.

Kristen Thiele, N & D, 2009, Oil on canvas, 39 x 44 in., Courtesy of the artist.

are then painted, often in industrial quality

metallic tones. The resulting pieces are

startling doppelgangers of urban detritus.

Pepe Mar makes a departure from his

signature use of intense, vibrant color in

Gold One, a shimmering golden assemblage

of abstraction and figuration combined to

emulate a Byzantine icon. In an inventive

turn about, Loriel Beltran has literally cut

and peeled the existing white paint off the

gallery wall and then placed it as a single

intact sheet onto a stretcher to be hung

where the paint removal was executed,

leaving the exposed drywall as a ghostly

presence beside the paint’s new incarnation.

When going back to the basics of pigment,

paint, and canvas, innovation has not waned.

Abstraction finds form through a variety

of styles. Julie Davidow’s sharp and prickly

fields of cool color, linear intersections, and

microscopic mutation elegantly grace the

canvas surface and at times virally sprawl

out of bounds onto the wall itself. Gavin

Perry masterfully embeds layers of painterly

statements into dense resin tableaux,

restrained and refined and then at times

marred and manipulated to conflate pristine

perfection and manic gesture. Jacin Giordano

embraces the physicality of paint itself.

His purely abstract works combine various

techniques that freeze the fluidity of paint,

its drips, blobs, layering, and plasticity. Paint

is his medium—manifesting in many forms

not always constrained by two-dimensional

surfaces. Raul Perdomo’s dizzyingly complex

compositions are webs of colorful, exploding

organic shapes, tendrils, and carefully

deliberate splatters. New York-based artist

Chuck Webster produced a series of paintings

while at Dan and Kathryn Mikesell’s

Fountainhead Residency in Miami during

June 2009. These biomorphic compositions

reflect the artist’s fascination with formal

elements and decorative motifs he finds and

isolates in images culled from art historical

sources. In this body of work, the verdant

tropical environment of the studio’s setting

had a significant impact on his approach.

Hybridization of process is also found in

combining mediums, such as Agatha Wara’s

Previous spread: Jason Hedges, Peppercorns #1, Peppercorns on panel, 2009, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the Artist.

Left: Pepe Mar, Gold One, 2009, Plaster, fabric, burlap on metal structure, Courtesy of David Castillo Gallery, Miami.

Above: Oliver Sanchez, Nunsmoke [“Truly the light is sweet...” (Ecclesiastes 11:7). But the “nuns” here are actors taking a break from filming. July 1959. Source: Hulton Getty Picture Collection], 2009, 48 x 72 in., Oil on canvas, Courtesy of the artist.

works, which derive their imagery from

aged microfiche film which has decayed and

corroded. She lifts and further distorts these

images through her unconventional displays.

Michael Genovese takes aluminum which

has a baked black enamel finish and deftly

etches all manner of detail and content into

it. In many of his works, viewers are invited

to interactively create their own images,

words, and patterns on these same pieces

using an array of sharp hand tools that are

attached for that purpose. Photographer

and painter Francie Bishop Good combines

both of these processes in works that show

representational scenes intersected by bright

strokes of color abstraction.

The possibilities of what painting can be at

this moment are as varied as the array of

styles evidenced within this exhibition. South

Florida as an art center doesn’t possess a

prevailing movement, theoretical approach,

or school of thought. It remains a fertile and

organic realm where most anything and

everything is fair game.

— Jane Hart, Curator of Exhibitions

Art and Culture Center of Hollywood

Left: Kevin Arrow, Four Weeping Mice, 1995-2009, Oil on wood, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist.

Richard Haden, Do Not Open Smell Or Taste, 2009, Painted wood, 12 x 11.5 x 6.5 in., Courtesy of Dorsch Gallery, Miami.

Chuck Webster, Buggin’ Out, 2009, Oil on panel, 16 x 16 inches, Courtesy of the artist and ZieherSmith, New York.

Below: Michelle Weinberg, Backdrop, 2008, Latex, acrylic, gouache, framed gouache paintings (dimensions variable) on paper, 66 x 154 in., Courtesy of the artist.

Right: Michael Vasquez, The Guarded Entry, 2008, Acrylic on canvas, 48 × 36 in., Private collection.

Back cover: Michael Genovese, Hopes and Aspirations of Chicagoans in Transit (detail), 2008, Interactive engraving on aluminum w/ baked enamel finish, 48 x 48 in., Courtesy of the artist.

1650 Harrison StreetHollywood, FL 33020954. 921. 3274ArtAndCultureCenter.org

The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported in part by its members, admissions, private entities, the City of Hollywood, the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We welcome donations from all members of the community who wish to support our work.

Funding for the 09/10 visual arts season is provided in part by Francie Bishop Good and David Horvitz, and a grant from Funding Arts Broward.

Gallery Hours: Mon – Sat, 10 am – 5 pm; Sun, noon – 4 pm. Gallery admission is $7 for adults; $4 for students, seniors and children ages 4 to 13; and free to Center members as well as children age 3 or younger with an adult. Complimentary parking.