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  New York Views April 1st / page 6

 

Zero Gravity/Heavy Weather, The Painting Center, 52 Greene Street, to April 21

This is a curious eclectic show composed mostly of abstract work which is the glue that holds it all together.  The work very roughly divides in two groups with plenty of overlap - a conceptual emphasis and a material one wrapped around reductive abstract painting.  Margaret Krug’s work takes the entire end wall and although composed of figurative imagery the arrangement is what 

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Dale Emmart, The Painting Center

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Leticia Ortega, The Painting Center

defines the work and places her more firmly in the conceptual camp.  Andrew Leo Baron incorporates words in his reductive paintings as both painting and language elements.  This establishes an underlying tension between concept and painting. Dale Emmart also strides both categories with a grid arrangement of painterly textured works on paper.  Heidi Johnson fits in more as

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Margaret Krug, The Painting Center

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Andrew Leo Baron (L) & Heidi Johnson (R) The Painting Center

pattern painter despite her recognizable imagery, such as her use of snakes.  The latter is so densely packed that the comprehensive effect overwhelms the individual components - at least from a distance. Leticia Ortega’s work is nearly pure patterns and surface handling. There is a certain delicate woven quality to these paintings in which a sense of atmosphere prevails. Finally there is Dionisio Cortes whose reductive biomorphic paintings are the most painterly.  These colorful paintings combine a few simple elements elegantly arranged that just barely fit into the reductive category.

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Dionisio Cortes, The Painting Center

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