I like a painting that does something, like a machine does something: you turn it on and it functions “Since Courbet, it’s been believed that painting is addressed to the retina.…The retinal shudder!” — Marcel Duchamp1 shudder // shutter The click of the shutter, the click of the cliché, but lets come back to that […]

If we can see the grace in quotidian landscapes and our everyday routines then perhaps we can begin to make better choices. Gary Green, Elm City, 2015. All images: © & courtesy the artist. BEN LISLEOne of the things that strikes me first when looking at these photos is this tension between a thoroughly human […]

I had never before or after felt this anxiety so intensely. The jump would mean letting go of that precious section and I would have to TRUST that something else would appear — and that something would resolve and complete the painting. Brenda Goodman, Breakthrough, 1985, oil on canvas, 60 x 84 in. All images: […]

I sat on the bed and placed a canvas on the windowsill and made my first painting in America. My earliest paintings in New York, were kind of the extension of what I was doing in Tokyo, but with limited material: one small brush and five tubes of cheap oil paint. From there, over a […]

I have always been concerned with meaning, allusion and narrative – something outside “pure” painterly concerns. Barnett Newman made great “pure” paintings, but I have always felt that I was made of baser clay. I want to tell a story, even if that story is cryptic or fragmentary. Prior to 2011, the focus of my […]

What was it that launched our own painting out of the issues of abstract expressionism? For me, it always means making paintings that are event-driven, something where you’re looking for an image that will emerge out of the painting process itself. A discussion of Re-Irascibles: Theodoros Stamos and John Zinsser, an exhibition at Graham Gallery […]

To aim for a more complete expression of reality is not at odds with abstraction. Reality in abstract painting exists where what is seen impacts the body physically… Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81 (Phillips Collection, Washington D.C). Included under the fair use exemption. (Click to enlarge) Renoir’s vision for painting was as […]

It doesn’t matter if it is painting, sculpture, drawing or photography. They all unravel in time. The work is about temporality and ways to relate to it. A durational temporality that is exposed to light. Nazafarin Lotfi, papier-mâché and wood, 2015. © Nazafarin Lotfi. Courtesy of the artist. I am drawn to sculpture as a […]

“the vast majority of us were off somewhere with someone in a dark corner doing godknowswhat” As teenagers, our first encounters with poetry had profound impact. While editing Please Excuse This Poem, an anthology of contemporary poetry curated with young adults in mind, we were constantly reminded of the power of poetry to change, enrich, […]

Here, I give the feelings to my grandfather. The impossibility of believing that his country, his town, (his life, his memories, his friends, his romances) exist…the collision of reality and fantasy that constitute the immigrant's longing. Poetry A TABLE THAT GOES ON FOR MILES The women’s legs look better every year. His basement, still strung […]