NY Views 1

^{All Images are Copyright 2006-2007 for the individual artists / text Copyright 2006 - 2007, Abstract Art Online. All rights reserved.}


	New York Views October 2007 / page 2

Zwinger, Howard Scott Gallery, 529 West 20th Street
to October 29

This show consists of paintings and drawings that straddle the line between figurative and abstract imagery. They further present a lyrical expressionism contained within a crude yet child-like quality - a sort of ‘informed’ naiveté. This work is grounded in the appealing earthiness of the color with an occasional saturation of brighter tones. The latter is self possessed of a quiet intensity because of the former. Zwinger must have spent some time looking at the work of Jean Michel Basquiat but there is also more than a hint of Paul Klee in these pictures along with a bit of Julian Schnabel.

Zwinger, Lucas Cranach - cool!, 2007, Oil on Cardboard, 44.1 x 33.27. x 3.39 inches

The sweet spot for these paintings is the balance between rawness and refinement which is both intimate and universal. Zwinger is able to have it both ways in that the subject matter is personal without a reliance on direct narrative. Because the imagery is also abstracted interpretations are opened up even as the intimacy is recognized. An analogy might be a poem where the author writes of a personal love in which there is beauty in the writing but the appeal of love is non-specific so that the readers are also able to make the poem their own. Similarly with these paintings you can enjoy their materials and how they are rendered but are also able to discover something specifically personal.

The artist explores a wide range of style and approach to this work using recognizable imagery and in the case of the painting Lucas Cranach - cool! even words. Yet the show holds together as a body of work and in fact, to my mind is strengthened for the diversity. No subtle variations on a



		Zwinger, Self with Blue Shadow 2, 2007, Oil on Canvas, 70.87 x 55.12 inches


	Zwinger, Wish Fulfiller, 2007, Oil on Canvas, 34.25 x 25.98.36 in

theme are presented here but rather the application of true style. Given the array of paintings and works on paper presented, this requires a measure of confidence to be pulled off successfully. Zwinger is quite clearly up to the task.