Available Potential Enterprise / Northampton, MA
2009
We don’t like to think that such differences exist, but artistic expression can be characterized by exceptions in gender. Both women and men have separate but equal agendas, temperaments, and as a consequence of this, their formal and esthetic results may widely differ. This is certainly the case in the exhibition “Present Tense” which brings together the work of Yvonne Estrada, Sean Greene, Clint Jukkala, Barbara Neulinger—four painters who each exemplify a divergent strain in contemporary currents of abstraction. Taken individually, the fusion of four unique talents would be enough reason to warrant attention—even fascination—with the attempts and achievements each makes into the formal ground of painterly abstraction. Yet as gender based pairs, and as practitioners of divergent inspiration, they each add to our understanding of what painting can mean for us.
The men in the show are involved with bright colors and hard edges, while the women are involved with gesture and depth of field. Sean Greene’s paintings are a compelling amalgam of gestural forms, but as they will appear in the future. Greene claims to be inspired by the signatures of graffiti and the fractured, though presumably articulate and soaring movement of skateboarding. They take on a gracefulness that they do not possess in life, unless the ardent practitioner strongly resembles the dedication of a talented musician or dancer. They are the shadows of past gestures choreographed for the use of future generations.
Clint Jukkula’s paintings intrinsically evoke the kind of resplendent environment dramatized within early versions of video games, epitomized by the film “Tron” (seeing a remake this year), with their given visual complexity, and the distance they possess from the landscapes of everyday life. Even when they break down, seeming to melt on the screen, it is not unlike the event of paint running too thinly on a canvas. Given the rugged materiality of Jukkula’s work, this shows the work’s relationship to its exterior environment, how paint may look like pixels but is still an organic medium relative to the human condition.
Barbara Neulinger’s forms are inspired from seaman’s knots, the type which any young boy completing for achievement badges in the Boy Scots would be required to prove proficiency. Such knots are a system of order, but also they inhabit a world of chance, of gesture, and of the intimations of design. They represent exactly the sort of real-world problem solving which is often at home in the hands of an artist. To solve the visual appearance of such knots, to place its squarely within the language of painting, is to understand how they exist in everyday life, in history, and in the life of the mind.
Yvonne Estrada deals with the expression of helixes, which are used in mathematics to explore the dynamic of quantum events, such as those in weather or the swirling forms of cosmic narrative beyond the comprehension of imagination despite appearing to resemble forms as the artist would naturally depict. Her work is primarily improvisational, having been generated from a simple calligraphic gesture, but this also connects it to a source of knowledge, as well as to stylistic determinations. Her works include both minute forms that preclude the use of large areas of negative space, and right at the tangent where automatism is wed to discipline, immediacy and detachment.
The words in the title of this exhibition are both succinct and deft. Each artist’s oeuvre is intensely displayed, suggesting the vicissitudes of temperament, talent, and cooperation with divergent trends in pictorial abstraction. Yet they also deliver a tension between their formal destinations which are not shared either across gender lines. The more time one spends in their company, the more they will all make their points clear.
David Gibson
We don’t like to think that such differences exist, but artistic expression can be characterized by exceptions in gender. Both women and men have separate but equal agendas, temperaments, and as a consequence of this, their formal and esthetic results may widely differ. This is certainly the case in the exhibition “Present Tense” which brings together the work of Yvonne Estrada, Sean Greene, Clint Jukkala, Barbara Neulinger—four painters who each exemplify a divergent strain in contemporary currents of abstraction. Taken individually, the fusion of four unique talents would be enough reason to warrant attention—even fascination—with the attempts and achievements each makes into the formal ground of painterly abstraction. Yet as gender based pairs, and as practitioners of divergent inspiration, they each add to our understanding of what painting can mean for us.
The men in the show are involved with bright colors and hard edges, while the women are involved with gesture and depth of field. Sean Greene’s paintings are a compelling amalgam of gestural forms, but as they will appear in the future. Greene claims to be inspired by the signatures of graffiti and the fractured, though presumably articulate and soaring movement of skateboarding. They take on a gracefulness that they do not possess in life, unless the ardent practitioner strongly resembles the dedication of a talented musician or dancer. They are the shadows of past gestures choreographed for the use of future generations.
Clint Jukkula’s paintings intrinsically evoke the kind of resplendent environment dramatized within early versions of video games, epitomized by the film “Tron” (seeing a remake this year), with their given visual complexity, and the distance they possess from the landscapes of everyday life. Even when they break down, seeming to melt on the screen, it is not unlike the event of paint running too thinly on a canvas. Given the rugged materiality of Jukkula’s work, this shows the work’s relationship to its exterior environment, how paint may look like pixels but is still an organic medium relative to the human condition.
Barbara Neulinger’s forms are inspired from seaman’s knots, the type which any young boy completing for achievement badges in the Boy Scots would be required to prove proficiency. Such knots are a system of order, but also they inhabit a world of chance, of gesture, and of the intimations of design. They represent exactly the sort of real-world problem solving which is often at home in the hands of an artist. To solve the visual appearance of such knots, to place its squarely within the language of painting, is to understand how they exist in everyday life, in history, and in the life of the mind.
Yvonne Estrada deals with the expression of helixes, which are used in mathematics to explore the dynamic of quantum events, such as those in weather or the swirling forms of cosmic narrative beyond the comprehension of imagination despite appearing to resemble forms as the artist would naturally depict. Her work is primarily improvisational, having been generated from a simple calligraphic gesture, but this also connects it to a source of knowledge, as well as to stylistic determinations. Her works include both minute forms that preclude the use of large areas of negative space, and right at the tangent where automatism is wed to discipline, immediacy and detachment.
The words in the title of this exhibition are both succinct and deft. Each artist’s oeuvre is intensely displayed, suggesting the vicissitudes of temperament, talent, and cooperation with divergent trends in pictorial abstraction. Yet they also deliver a tension between their formal destinations which are not shared either across gender lines. The more time one spends in their company, the more they will all make their points clear.
David Gibson
New York Times review
WESTCHESTER WEEKLY DESK
ART REVIEW; Bringing the Outdoors Inside and Hanging It on the Walls
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: March 20, 2005, Sunday
THE latest exhibition in Glyndor House, a historic home and gallery on the 28-acre grounds of Wave Hill in the Bronx, is a group show by nine artists whose works here exploit, reference or have inadvertently absorbed the surrounding natural environment. ''It is about bringing the landscape inside,'' the staff curator Jennifer McGregor told me. But since it is winter, or winter's end, most of the artworks are pretty spare.
Late last year, over six weeks, each of the artists was invited to visit the house and grounds to prepare for the project. Somewhat surprisingly, all but one -- Ulrike Heydenreich -- have left the gallery spaces empty, preferring instead to paint, draw or graft their installations directly onto the walls or other architectural supports. The result is an exhibition that points up the home's Georgian revival-style interior as much as it plays off external garden vistas.
On the oval-shaped wall of the entrance foyer, for instance, Amy Chan has installed a soft-toned, imagination-fuelled mural painting of the sky filled with images of free-floating residential homes and dainty landforms referencing, according to the exhibition room brochure, ''the built, natural and historic landscape'' of Riverdale and surrounding Hudson River area. It is like a realtor's fantasy, you might say, mapping the region's most desirable private dwellings.
Ideas of maps and mapping recur throughout the works here, from Geraldine Lau's joyous distillation of New York State topographical maps, cribbed and reconfigured as a wall installation in a stairwell using bite-sized bits of colored vinyl, to Vargas-Suarez Universal's devilishly intricate, velvety surfaced, panoramic wall drawing that blends oddball references to architecture, biology, astronomy and nature. It is like a mix of Star Trek, the Amazon and Sol LeWitt.
Jeffrey Gibson, an experienced wall illustrator, has used mostly non-traditional materials like painted plastic forms, quartz crystals and pigmented silicone to cook up a luxuriant, free-flowing ensemble that, in my experience, has no precedent in contemporary art or any kind of art, anytime, anywhere, for that matter. The application of iridescent paint and prevalence of swirling, organic forms gives his painting liveliness, even a kind of effusiveness.
Intense visual pleasure also flows from an encounter with Amy Yoes's twirling decorative motifs, painted loosely in red ink on the walls and architectural features of the sunroom, and picking up nicely on a nearby, outdoor arbor, now covered with snow.
Then there is Yvonne Estrada's coolly improvisatory, serenely meditative installation-like wall drawing in the south gallery. Encompassing a sequence of linked wall panels around the room, and largely white, Ms. Estrada's piece offers a subtle evocation of the Wave Hill landscape in winter.
Late last year, over six weeks, each of the artists was invited to visit the house and grounds to prepare for the project. Somewhat surprisingly, all but one -- Ulrike Heydenreich -- have left the gallery spaces empty, preferring instead to paint, draw or graft their installations directly onto the walls or other architectural supports. The result is an exhibition that points up the home's Georgian revival-style interior as much as it plays off external garden vistas.
On the oval-shaped wall of the entrance foyer, for instance, Amy Chan has installed a soft-toned, imagination-fuelled mural painting of the sky filled with images of free-floating residential homes and dainty landforms referencing, according to the exhibition room brochure, ''the built, natural and historic landscape'' of Riverdale and surrounding Hudson River area. It is like a realtor's fantasy, you might say, mapping the region's most desirable private dwellings.
Ideas of maps and mapping recur throughout the works here, from Geraldine Lau's joyous distillation of New York State topographical maps, cribbed and reconfigured as a wall installation in a stairwell using bite-sized bits of colored vinyl, to Vargas-Suarez Universal's devilishly intricate, velvety surfaced, panoramic wall drawing that blends oddball references to architecture, biology, astronomy and nature. It is like a mix of Star Trek, the Amazon and Sol LeWitt.
Jeffrey Gibson, an experienced wall illustrator, has used mostly non-traditional materials like painted plastic forms, quartz crystals and pigmented silicone to cook up a luxuriant, free-flowing ensemble that, in my experience, has no precedent in contemporary art or any kind of art, anytime, anywhere, for that matter. The application of iridescent paint and prevalence of swirling, organic forms gives his painting liveliness, even a kind of effusiveness.
Intense visual pleasure also flows from an encounter with Amy Yoes's twirling decorative motifs, painted loosely in red ink on the walls and architectural features of the sunroom, and picking up nicely on a nearby, outdoor arbor, now covered with snow.
Then there is Yvonne Estrada's coolly improvisatory, serenely meditative installation-like wall drawing in the south gallery. Encompassing a sequence of linked wall panels around the room, and largely white, Ms. Estrada's piece offers a subtle evocation of the Wave Hill landscape in winter.
Published: 03 - 20 - 2005 , Late Edition - Final , Section 14WC , Column 1 , Page 17
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
METAPHOR Contemporary Art
Draw / Paint an installation of recent work
March 30 - May 1, 2005 . Opening Reception: March 30, 6-9 pm
In the project space, Yvonne Estrada will present a large selection of recent drawings and paintings in a free form installation that highlights their similarities and differences. A common touchstone throughout her work is the generative power of the gesture. Estrada often begins her drawings with a free and calligraphic stroke and then proceeds on an imaginative journey from the general to the highly specific. Motifs inspired by nature are then added and carefully refined to a high degree of delicate complexity with the original gesture serving as the organizing core of the piece. In her paintings gesture is expressed in high energy swaths of jewel-like colors that form fields which frame elements improvised and developed in the drawings. What changes from one media to the next is the level of intensity and weight. She has stated that in her work,"Perceptions of time and space [are] manifested in simple lines and shapes, [and]evolve as an unpredictable microcosm of chaos and order, revealing ever shifting subconscious states." If the drawings present us with a lucid visual reverie, rich with symbols and lighter than air, then the paintings evoke stronger moods packing a concentrated potency within their relatively small formats.
Originally from Colombia, Yvonne Estrada has shown her paintings and drawings extensively. Concurrent with her exhibition at Metaphor, she is exhibiting a large site-specific drawing project at Wave Hill in the Bronx. Her work can be found in corporate and private collections.
In the project space, Yvonne Estrada will present a large selection of recent drawings and paintings in a free form installation that highlights their similarities and differences. A common touchstone throughout her work is the generative power of the gesture. Estrada often begins her drawings with a free and calligraphic stroke and then proceeds on an imaginative journey from the general to the highly specific. Motifs inspired by nature are then added and carefully refined to a high degree of delicate complexity with the original gesture serving as the organizing core of the piece. In her paintings gesture is expressed in high energy swaths of jewel-like colors that form fields which frame elements improvised and developed in the drawings. What changes from one media to the next is the level of intensity and weight. She has stated that in her work,"Perceptions of time and space [are] manifested in simple lines and shapes, [and]evolve as an unpredictable microcosm of chaos and order, revealing ever shifting subconscious states." If the drawings present us with a lucid visual reverie, rich with symbols and lighter than air, then the paintings evoke stronger moods packing a concentrated potency within their relatively small formats.
Originally from Colombia, Yvonne Estrada has shown her paintings and drawings extensively. Concurrent with her exhibition at Metaphor, she is exhibiting a large site-specific drawing project at Wave Hill in the Bronx. Her work can be found in corporate and private collections.
Julian Jackson
Wave Hill _ ART
Glyndor Gallery
“Out of Bounds”
Jennifer McGregor - Curator
“37 Days at Wave Hill / Winter 2005” - Yvonne Estrada
Through improvisation and gesture, Yvonne Estrada expands her extemporaneous technique of drawing and painting to create a densely layered installation. Observing Wave Hill in winter and experiencing the landscape covered in snow were essential to the genesis of this piece. Working with an entire section of the room, her installation encompasses five walls, and gives the appearance of Japanese screens. Since she preferred to work on paper rather than the painted wall surface, she mounted sheetrock panels, which may also be removed and reconfigured at the end of the exhibition. These were transported to Wave Hill with initial marks that began in her studio. Working on site over the course of six weeks, the drawings emerged and synthesized each day, developing from spontaneous accidents. During the process, white washes of paint would mute earlier black and blue marks. Estrada continuously brought forward new drawings to the surface from this mist.
This is Yvonne Estrada’s first wall installation project. She has exhibited drawings and paintings in New York at Kerrigan Campbell Art + Projects, Von Lintel Gallery, and Nora Haime Gallery. She is exhibiting at Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY. She has also exhibited at Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango in Bogotá, Colombia.
Through improvisation and gesture, Yvonne Estrada expands her extemporaneous technique of drawing and painting to create a densely layered installation. Observing Wave Hill in winter and experiencing the landscape covered in snow were essential to the genesis of this piece. Working with an entire section of the room, her installation encompasses five walls, and gives the appearance of Japanese screens. Since she preferred to work on paper rather than the painted wall surface, she mounted sheetrock panels, which may also be removed and reconfigured at the end of the exhibition. These were transported to Wave Hill with initial marks that began in her studio. Working on site over the course of six weeks, the drawings emerged and synthesized each day, developing from spontaneous accidents. During the process, white washes of paint would mute earlier black and blue marks. Estrada continuously brought forward new drawings to the surface from this mist.
This is Yvonne Estrada’s first wall installation project. She has exhibited drawings and paintings in New York at Kerrigan Campbell Art + Projects, Von Lintel Gallery, and Nora Haime Gallery. She is exhibiting at Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, NY. She has also exhibited at Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango in Bogotá, Colombia.
Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions:
Theresa Chong•Yvonne Estrada•Eva Lee•Henry Mandell
Curated by Lisa Hatchadoorian
Theresa Chong•Yvonne Estrada•Eva Lee•Henry Mandell
Curated by Lisa Hatchadoorian
The abstract drawings of Theresa Chong, Yvonne Estrada, Eva Lee, and Henry Mandell refer to a history of abstraction, gesture, and mark making embedded within the recent tradition of art. At the same time, their nuanced, and layered works visually weave in concepts of science, such as entropy and chaos, which are predicated on change, disorder, and unpredictability. All four artists create drawings of complex systems displaying structures and patterns that mimic the irregularities found in nature. Their artwork also captures the inherent and simple beauty of undulating lines, points, marks, and symbols that are tools employed to chart a visual and theoretical course through space in both science and art.
The most recent series of drawings by Theresa Chong utilize aspects of the handmade and the mechanical to conceptualize an area that is both vast and minute. On an inky blue-black or white sheet of wispy rice paper, Chong maps a course through the picture plane made up entirely of gently swooping lines and dots that cluster and break apart according to their own internal logic and structure. Chong doodles and visualizes her abstract gestures on the computer and then transfers the mechanized marks by hand onto the rich, texturized rice paper field. Visually, her drawings present an all-over expanse that can be likened to clusters of starry matter in space. Artistically, her pared down gestures unfold and loop back on themselves, taking the eye with it. Scientifically, her deft use of line conjures up concepts of chaos theory where order masquerades as disorder and spontaneous change is constant.
The intimate, and humorous drawings of Yvonne Estrada present an interconnected and slightly surreal world that consists of various abstract and stylized gestures, combined with floating biological forms, calligraphic motifs, and repetitive decorative marks. Estrada mingles these different types of marks and gestures in layered, poetic compositions that expand and release the markings from their original meaning as inscriptions on a flat field. She creates a quasi-scientific/artistic hybrid space where the placement and aesthetic use of her lexicon of symbols yields unpredictable results and amusing juxtapositions of form and meaning.
Eva Lee, like Theresa Chong, creates her abstract drawings with the most basic of marks: connective dots and lines. Her creative process though, takes place entirely on the plane of the paper. The artist courts chance and an unpredictable nature in her work, as she is never sure what the final outcome will be from her minute starting points. Lee generates an abstract conception of space that is malleable, fluid, constantly moving and turning on its own axis. Akin to Yvonne Estrada, Lee also recycles a group of standard forms in the shapes of circles, gourds, and biomorphous organisms that populate her deep, endless semi-cosmic space.
The undulating, repetitive, and layered abstractions of Henry Mandell are created solely on a computer from sentences of text that refer to weather in its endlessly unpredictable patterns. Playing and toying with minute variations in line and letter placement, his drawings disguise any legibility or inherent meaning from the words themselves. Language is broken down and built up as pure form in an endless lyrical sequencing. His treatment of text treads a boundary between the deterministic loops and curlicues of our own handwriting and thought process to the mechanistic patterns and chance uncertainties that occur within the computer as various systems play themselves out in the same space over time.
The most recent series of drawings by Theresa Chong utilize aspects of the handmade and the mechanical to conceptualize an area that is both vast and minute. On an inky blue-black or white sheet of wispy rice paper, Chong maps a course through the picture plane made up entirely of gently swooping lines and dots that cluster and break apart according to their own internal logic and structure. Chong doodles and visualizes her abstract gestures on the computer and then transfers the mechanized marks by hand onto the rich, texturized rice paper field. Visually, her drawings present an all-over expanse that can be likened to clusters of starry matter in space. Artistically, her pared down gestures unfold and loop back on themselves, taking the eye with it. Scientifically, her deft use of line conjures up concepts of chaos theory where order masquerades as disorder and spontaneous change is constant.
The intimate, and humorous drawings of Yvonne Estrada present an interconnected and slightly surreal world that consists of various abstract and stylized gestures, combined with floating biological forms, calligraphic motifs, and repetitive decorative marks. Estrada mingles these different types of marks and gestures in layered, poetic compositions that expand and release the markings from their original meaning as inscriptions on a flat field. She creates a quasi-scientific/artistic hybrid space where the placement and aesthetic use of her lexicon of symbols yields unpredictable results and amusing juxtapositions of form and meaning.
Eva Lee, like Theresa Chong, creates her abstract drawings with the most basic of marks: connective dots and lines. Her creative process though, takes place entirely on the plane of the paper. The artist courts chance and an unpredictable nature in her work, as she is never sure what the final outcome will be from her minute starting points. Lee generates an abstract conception of space that is malleable, fluid, constantly moving and turning on its own axis. Akin to Yvonne Estrada, Lee also recycles a group of standard forms in the shapes of circles, gourds, and biomorphous organisms that populate her deep, endless semi-cosmic space.
The undulating, repetitive, and layered abstractions of Henry Mandell are created solely on a computer from sentences of text that refer to weather in its endlessly unpredictable patterns. Playing and toying with minute variations in line and letter placement, his drawings disguise any legibility or inherent meaning from the words themselves. Language is broken down and built up as pure form in an endless lyrical sequencing. His treatment of text treads a boundary between the deterministic loops and curlicues of our own handwriting and thought process to the mechanistic patterns and chance uncertainties that occur within the computer as various systems play themselves out in the same space over time.
Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions – Kerrigan Campbell Art+Projects
July 23- September 3, 2004
URBES INTERIORES - BIBLIOTECA LUIS ANGEL ARANGO
BANCO DE LA REPUBLICA- BOGOTA COLOMBIA.
2004
YVONNE ESTRADA
In her paintings and in particular in her delicate drawings, Yvonne Estrada has developed a very personal iconography through gesture, that she describes “ as a type of automatic writing in which several drawings develop at the same time”. In this manner, Estrada realises extensive series without a precise destination, by means of expontaneity and intuition. Calligraphic elements appear, as well as references to organic elements such as mesh, twigs and branches and the veins of leaves that can never be defined explicitly as recognisable forms.
The delicacy of Estrada’s drawings is particularly outstanding since the work is realised totally with brushes with a technical skill that makes us think of Orients long calligraphic tradition. This association is not superficial: The artist has expressed that “poetry, philosophy and spirituality are some of the forces that motivates my labour, and on the visual side, calligraphy, geometry and nature with it cycles and organisms”, and that she understands her drawings as something intimate, like a form of daily meditation and discipline.
Jose Ignacio Roca
Curator Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango- Banco de La Republica
Bogota - Colombia
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