Photo By Gail
Painted in Sedona, Arizona in 1947, Witnesses originates in a pivotal moment of Dorothy Tanning’s career, when she turned inward, translating the psychological imperatives of Surrealism into interior worlds shaped by ambiguity and concealment. The painting presents a crowded, deliberately compressed interior populated by uncanny, quasi-human figures whose anatomy resist stable definition.
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Dorothea Tanning, Temoins Du Drame (Witnesses)
Photo By Gail
To counter the dehumanizing isolation of incarceration, artist Jesse Krimes (b, 1982) works collaboratively with incarcerated individuals to create artworks from old clothing and textiles that evoke memories of home. Krimes developed his own practice while serving a six-year sentence. In Blackwater (2021), Krimes regards the tentacled animal as “a panoptic state of surveillance” and alludes to the eugenic and white supremacist ideas in America zoology. The title, Blackwater, refers to a prison in Florida.
Photographed in the Brooklyn Museum.
Photo By Gail
There’s something quietly unsettling about Winter Twilight (1930) by Charles E. Burchfield — a winter scene that feels less like a peaceful evening and more like a moment suspended in uneasy silence. The painting depicts a snow-covered road at dusk, but instead of warmth or nostalgia, the scene leans into isolation and quiet tension. What strikes me immediately is how cinematic and moody it feels — almost like a haunted version of a Edward Hopper streetscape.
The street appears largely deserted, blanketed in mostly undisturbed snow. A storefront glows brightly, where two bundled pedestrians appear to be window shopping — one of the only signs of life in an otherwise still environment. Nearby, another lone figure stands facing the street, back turned to the pair, adding to the sense of emotional distance and disconnection. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Charles Burchfield, Winter Twilight
Photo By Gail
Created in 1954, No Passing reflects artist Kay Sage’s mature style — a stark, architectural surrealism built from scaffolding-like structures, draped forms, and wide, empty expanses that feel both constructed and abandoned. The composition suggests barriers, boundaries, and restriction, with vertical elements that resemble incomplete buildings or skeletal frameworks. Fabric-like shapes appear suspended or stretched across the space, as if something is being concealed or held in place. No Passing feels exactly like its title — a visual barrier, a place where movement stops and entry is denied
Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Kay Sage, No Passing
Photo By Gail
A representative figure associated with Lyrical Abstraction in Paris, Georges Mathieu (1921 – 2012) adopted a gestural abstract style distinguished by his predominant use of calligraphic signs and unusually rapid mode of painting. In Black and White Abstract (La mort de la Reine Edith) (1957) the entangled swirling lines were applied directly onto the surface of the canvas from a paint tube. The artist’s sprouting, rhythmic, scribble-like marks sometimes interlace with larger brush strokes. From the early 1950s, Mathieu began to make art before large public audiences, documenting his performative actions through photography and film.
Photographed in the Guggenheim Museum in NYC.