Sep 15th, 2020 • 7 minute read
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The Bi-Weekly Curation: The Square
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At one point in time, back in the days of soda shops and saddle shoes, there was no greater insult than being square. But we’ll make like Patrick Bateman and Huey Lewis and the News, because we know it’s hip to be square. In art, the square is one of the most pleasing shapes, and, in contrast, often the most difficult to master. As we’ve evolved, the square evolves, now evocative of the iconic Instagram format. We’re conditioning ourselves to look for squares. With equal edges, the square format lends itself to perfectly centered composition. Without trying, we as a viewer are drawn to the center of the painting, seeking that equilibrium. As an artist, it can be a true challenge to break beyond that centered view. But when a masterful craftsman pushes beyond the ease and symmetrical comfort of the square, we are left with a thrilling and stimulating composition.
This week artist and curator Mel Reese brings together a collection of Art in Res pieces that each approach the square format differently, yet each is successful in their own way. Scroll through the post to see Mel’s placement of each piece, as well as how the selected works come together in a thoughtful, coalescent collection. Make sure to also catch Mel’s helpful educational tips on curating your own collection!
It’s a great time to revamp the living room, bathroom, or bedroom. As we all dream of designing our permanent homes, we can select stunning new artwork, lending our design tastes an extra dose of class and sophistication.
Now let’s scroll onward ;) –– happy browsing!
Symmetry
With circus tent vibrancy and pattern work, this color-filled linear abstraction is all about utilizing the square. Straight lines, strong angles, and clear color directs our eyes, combining the whimsical and the organized in a perfectly tantalizing way. With this composition, Zens simultaneously pulls us toward and away from the center.
After graduating from Columbia College Chicago in 2012 with a BA in Music Business, Lauren returned to her roots in Milwaukee in 2013. Her interest in contemporary abstract and geometric art started in 2008 with a hard-edge assignment during a high school painting class. Her Golden acrylic paint, 3M blue painter’s tape, and a quilting ruler are now her most cherished tools.
Heavy Colors
As we mentioned the instagram square, we see in Baker’s piece that familiar square landscape. Warm and inviting, it is the opposite of Zens’ harsh abstraction. This painting is all soft edges and organic shapes, oozing off the canvas. Within this square, Baker uses color as her strongest compositional element, drawing us down to the heavier, dark color and then directing us upwards with a brilliant, judicious use of bright, striking blue. Like a wave of California poppies, we see that bright yellow centering us in the square, a pop of joy. Like a classic piece of impressionism, we are fully encompassed in the gorgeous rendering of this yet unknown landscape.
Kale Baker's work explores the landscape through color and mark-making. She draws parallels between mother nature and the human heart through expressive brushwork, turbulence and vulnerability.
Figuration
QiuChen Fan crafts yet another, altogether different approach to the classic square--using our favorite subject of all, the human form. Like a catalogue straight out of the 1980s, outfits perfect for Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, Fan’s imagery is bold and ironic. With a human form, we are always drawn to the canvas. Fan thoughtfully places each figure off center, weighting the piece on the right hand side. But we don’t get bogged down in the individuality of the beings, with no defining features. These figure’s iconic nature lies in their anonymity.
QiuChen mainly works through 2D medium incorporating ink, pencil, charcoal, acrylic, tempera and collage. With a primary interest in people and the boundaries that exist within relationships, her work explores the co-existence of contradictions, contemporary lifestyles and consumer culture. Being influenced by both Chinese and American communication modes and aesthetic systems, she considers the role of an artist as an observer and art as a way to meditate.
Squares within Squares!
Rebecca Kaufman’s piece reminds us of album covers, window screens, and mosquito netting. It’s a trip in its simplicity –– squares within squares within squares. The painting is truly about its squareness. It’s a stunning, almost perfect, yet clearly human-crafted grid. Each run down the pattern mimics runs in our tights, tear patterns familiar and repeating over and over again.
Rebecca Kaufman’s paintings address the autonomy of perception using the ancient technology of painting to reflect on the addictive visual technologies that we rely so heavily upon today. She currently lives and works in San Francisco teaching art to kids and adults and volunteering at Root Division, a nonprofit arts organization.
Organic Forms
With Sherman’s piece, we leave behind the world of hard lines and crisp patterns. One sure way to leave the restrictions of the square behind is through total and complete rejection. With each soft splatter ––paint pooling in rich, organic, rounded ways –– Sherman emphasizes the rigid hard edge of the canvas edge. With each ooze and flow, the gorgeous, layered painting leads us through its natural composition. With each spatter we see the emphasis and stylish mastery of contrast and juxtaposition.
Ellen Sherman is an abstract artist working in Ann Arbor, MI. Ellen began her artistic career as a digital painter and designer for a mobile game studio she helped co-found in 2009. In 2011 she left the position of Art Director behind and dedicated herself to a full time pursuit of exploring the natural world through her paint.
Expansion
Rundorff-Smith is truly our queen of patterns. With this subtle, easily digestible pattern, the painting feels like a breath of fresh air. Playing off mid-century design, Rundorff-Smith leaves the dead center of the composition empty. With this gap, we jumpstart the expansion, visually moving outward towards each edge. With simplicity we, of course, always find complexity.
Liz Rundorff Smith lives and works in Greenville, South Carolina. Her work is compelled by the idea that she can find beauty in mundane spaces that are accidentally visually engaging. She draws inspiration from everyday motifs like street signs, weeds, graffiti, and fences and the spaces that are most familiar to her like her backyard, neighborhood and home. Rundorff’s focus is on bringing a personal and emotional response to the ordinary scenes of daily existence that are often overlooked.
Roller Coaster Ride
In a roller coaster of color, pattern, and design, we see chaos and structure in Yan’s maximalist painting. We long to run down each chute and latter of the work, diving in and out of the piece. Like a carnival ride, we are whipped and yanked and dropped through, in and out and in again, beyond the painting’s edge.
Wan Yang was born in Changchun and is now living and working in San Francisco. She believes art has the potential to inspire and empower, to shape lives and carve soon-to-be-trodden paths.
All the Tools
I’ve left this stunning Neidhardt piece for last because I feel this painting utilizes many of the same tools discussed in almost all the prior pieces in this curation. Drawn into its warm, rich center, we the viewer are lifted out, brought to the edge of the composition by use of thoughtful color, line, and organic forms. The weightiness of the dark ground eases us towards the edges while the bright, flickering pedals guide us back through the rest of the piece.
Sharilyn Neidhardt draws on her training as a photojournalist and as a printmaker to create images of urban living, nature, celebrity, and human conflict. She grew up in southern California but moved to Brooklyn more than two decades ago. Neidhardt maintains a studio at Brooklyn Fireproof, plays a mean game of chess, and speaks only a little German.
Bringing it Together
On curating the collection:
Let’s learn how and why I brought these pieces together –– I want to walk you through what I’ve considered. Whether you’re an experienced collector or totally new to the art world, it’s always fun to thoughtfully discuss what makes a great collection.
This week we will discuss what makes these pieces successful in their approach to the square format.
Composition:
Here we truly focus on our main theme, the piece tying everything together--the titular square. Composition and form are very related. With the square format, these paintings inform the composition and vice versa. As we’ve shown across the spectrum this week, there are so many ways to reinvent the square, utilizing composition to guide the viewer through each piece. As we escape the boring old square, we escape feeling stuck in the centrality of the shapes natural form.
With these new viewing tools in hand, happy collecting!
Curated by Mel ReeseZhuzh by Emily Berge
Virtual installations courtesy of ArtPlacer