Press

Inspired by the ArtPrize competition she wrote about recently, Nancy Tobin interviewed Heidi Van Weiren, who caught her eye because she was able to break into the New York art market as an outsider.

As I was perusing the myriad artists who will be showing their stuff for September’s ArtPrize event in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich., I was delighted to see that Heidi Van Weiren will be participating. I’ve followed her mesmerizing work through one of my favorite Chelsea galleries, Margaret Thatcher Projects.

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Heidi van Wieren's current compositions investigate the variegated skies of South Dakota’s Badlands. Working with an unusual set of materials—Elmer’s glue, pigment, and droplets of ink—the artist builds up layers that contain what seems to be an infinite number of stars in a night-time sky. In the case of the “Badlands” series, the drops of ink, which occur in a spectrum of sizes, from very small to rather large, are scattered across the paper or panel.

Tad Mike walks in wooded areas, such as the Maine woods and Florida forests. He picks up bits of organic matter as he walks. Using what he finds, these accumulations become mark-making tools. He likens his selection to combing a beach for shells – one shell sparkles, sings out, is swooped up. What impulse determines this particular selection?

Paradox ripples through Bill Thompson's luscious objects much like their brilliant, seductive surfaces shift and distort reflected images. They are mysterious and beautiful. There is something alien, yet entirely familiar about them.

From digitally manipulated photographs to works that began as digital images, or were produced via computer programs, technology is at the root of the processes of many contemporary artists.

Stemming from Roy Lichtenstein who used references to graphic art and the methods of mass production to lampoon artists from Monet to the abstract expressionists, his work challenges the romantic notion that art’s value lay in the heroic marks of the artist-genius. Today, however, with the commonplace use of digital technology comes a manifest tension between deeply entrenched romantic ideals and computer-enabled methods.

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William Steiger continues to explore topics of landscape, architecture and evolvement of the early 20th century in this series of new oil paintings and works on paper. In this series of new oil paintings and works on paper.

You could spend a summer's day getting lost in these 33 dense abstractions, gathered from a score of artists. David Ambrose pin-pricks his paper to create delicately textured surfaces over which he paints vibrant, fluid forms; Adam Fowler draws sinuous lines on paper, excises the negative spaces with a knife, and then layers various sheets into overlapping webs.

David Mann's exquisitley rendered works seem to represent gravity-defying phenonmena that could be unfoldeding on a galatic or molecular level.  The 10 glowing canvases in his third show at McKenzie feature flexible white loops and elipses that look as if they were suspended in space or liquid.  They are readable as cosmic formations viewed through a telescope or as cells seen through a microscope....

If you can overlook the limitations of the Molloy College Art Gallery, a hallway in an administrative building where paintings are occasionally hung, there is a terrific selection of works in “Words Become Pictures.” It is a group show looking at the use of words in contemporary art, especially painting, sometimes to enhance the viewer’s understanding and sometimes as purely abstract visual symbols...Read Full Story

The exhibition of drawings at the Garrison Art Center gets a welcome blast of spring color from a collage made of strips of paper and plastic by Jeesoo Lee installed at the entrance. But the austerity of black on white is dominant in the dozen works here, making this show look and feel like an essay in contemporary minimalism.

Closer inspection reveals a greater formal diversity, with the practice of drawing explored from many points of view. There is also an absorbing short video of the artists in their studios, produced by the curators Susan English and Jaanika Peerna in an effort to reveal the artists’ working processes. It brings the studio into the gallery. It also reminds you that until quite recently, drawing was viewed as a preliminary process in the evolution of a work of art — a method of thinking through ideas, a tool for mapping out structure — rather than as an end in itself. These days, drawings are often displayed as independent artworks.

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