Aspiring to express subtler layers of reality in his art, he gradually liberated himself from the limitations of an overt political agenda. Arnold Mesches, “Shock and Awe 23,” 2012. A/c, 80 x 104 in. © Arnold Mesches. Courtesy of the artist. The shock of his first encounter with Franz Kline’s paintings back in the fifties […]

I began thinking that something else was happening, and that something else had to be brought into my thinking as a social realist painter — how the hell can I bring that into my thinking as an image maker? Arnold Mesches, “Eternal Return,” 2013, acrylic on canvas and paper on canvas. 50 x 60 in. […]

Absurdity, as a concept…can transcend immediate frustration by asking the viewer to question, not only what they are seeing and feeling, but, more importantly, why they are questioning their awakened uneasiness. Hopefully, the dichotomy only increases when one is seduced by the richness of the painting’s surface and the enticing vividness of color… Arnold Mesches, […]

Jessica Auer Brett Baker Roger Ballen Andrew Baren Steven Baris Uta Barth Paul Behnke Richard Benari Siri Berg Katherine Bradford Farrell Brickhouse Patrick Burns Jennifer Colten Clayton Colvin Guy C. Corriero Michael David Emilia Dubicki Sharon Etgar Alan Feltus Katie Ford Nobu Fukui Marianne Gagnier Ilya Gefter Ellen Goldsmith Brenda Goodman Elizabeth Gourlay Gary Green […]

Happily, the best of 2013 was not the biggest. Happily, because art–and the market that seems to drive it–has trended toward the big: the big wall-power painting and print, the gigantor sculpture; and the big spaces and names that can accommodate. But what stayed with us most from 2013 was mostly small and mostly quiet, […]

We started Tilted Arc back in October because we wanted to create a conversation around ideas of practice and intention. We are so deeply grateful to the artists who have contributed fresh and often challenging insight into how art and literature get made, and the essential place that materials, memory, perception and process claim in […]

The more art I see—and I think in 41 years in the art environment in New York I have seen quite a bit of art—enigma is that aspect of an artist’s work that holds me the longest and the thing that separates one artist from the rest. But enigma does not necessarily make you very […]

The degree to which the painter is transformed by their process is the degree by which the viewer can be transformed by, or enabled to “enter,” the painting. It’s not a finite record or exchange, but in the face of that genuine and meaningful articulation of transformation, the viewer does feel it, does “know it.” […]