Artist Profiles

 Page 3 - Milton Resnick / May

such complete creatures of a painterly approach. Because the forms are kept reductive and placed at the service of his paint handling, Resnick comprehensively expresses, even celebrates, painterly sensuality in his work.

Above Below, 1998, Oil on canvas, 64 x 80 in

The latter concept is inseparable from the content in Resnick�s work. A devotion to what might be called pure painting defines everything in these paintings. What becomes interesting; indeed, makes the work, are the contradictions that grow

Above Below, 1998, Oil on canvas, 54 x 80 in

out of this. There is the aforementioned combination of reductive forms and the sensual paint handling. There is also a heavy and contrastingly light representation of atmospheric space. Up close the surfaces are as thick as an alligator�s skin but from a distance it seems you can look deep into them. Then there is color, which (at least in the later work) is quite somber yet, richly verdant in the variety of muted hues examined within a range of grays.

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Return, 1960, Oil on canvas, 83 1/2 x 53 in

All of this the artist examines, discovers and expresses through the act of painting.  On this basis you might say that Resnick is a very realistic painter; though not at all in the way realism is traditionally defined. This must be understood in knowing what painting is and does.  What you see in this work is an authentic journey (and corresponding struggle) to arrive at work that contains a plethora of multi-leveled meanings. And all of this is contained and defined within Milton Resnick�s vision of a painterly sensibility.

Above Below, 1998, Oil on canvas, 54 x 80 in

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