23.4.09

Thomas Nozkowski at Stephen Friedman Gallery


24 April - 23 May 2009

Private view Thursday 23 April, 6-8pm


Thomas Nozkowski, 'Untitled (8-113)' 2009

PRESS RELEASE

Stephen Friedman Gallery is proud to present their first-ever exhibition of new paintings by American artist Thomas Nozkowski. In June this year, Nozkowski will be celebrated with a mid-career retrospective at The National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Nozkowski has become one of the most original and celebrated abstract painters of his generation. From the late 1970s to the present day, he has made paintings and paintings on paper in two specific sizes. Within this framework, he has mined the complex possibilities of imagery and visual language, leaving behind the confines of Minimalism and the commercialism of Pop. The formal qualities of his work have defied definition. Patterns, broken grids, biomorphic shapes and geometric abstraction often collide and multi-faceted figures and complex ground embrace. The result is a unique vocabulary that Nozkowski characterises as having "a quality of logic on the brink of dissolution.”Nozkowski transforms memories of sites, sensory experiences, and emotional states into a glorious array of colour, texture and visual planes. His shadowy cartography creates a physical terrain for 'tetris'-like configurations of pastel hued blocks. In some paintings, grossly inflated balloons rendered in bold, opaque tones are interlaced with calligraphic lines and stand proud in the centre. In others, these forms balance precipitously on steep slopes and slip behind the canvas or slide behind alternate planes.Nozkowski’s quietly confident paintings do not draw attention to themselves but their transcendent beauty brings us to a place where the ordinary and the magical meet.Thomas Nozkowski (b. 1944) lives and works in New York City and High Falls, NY. His work has been seen in over 65 solo and group exhibitions worldwide. Recent solo shows include: Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2008), Fisher Landau Center for Contemporary Art, Long Island City (2008), and Subject to Change, Ludwig Museum, Koblenz, Germany (2007). Recent group shows include: The Continuous Present, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (2009), Degas to Diebenkorn: The Phillips Collects, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2008), Point of No Return, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (2008), Think With The Senses, Feel With The Mind: Art In The Present Tense (curated by Robert Storr), La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2007), Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007). 
A mid-career retrospective of Nozkowski’s paintings curated by Marc Mayer will open at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, in June 2009.

Stephen Friedman Gallery25–28 Old Burlington StreetLondon W1S 3AN T: +44 20 7494 1434F: +44 20 7494 1431 www.stephenfriedman.com

21.4.09

Territories - Screen

This painting (Territories - Screen) has recently been completed...

In process - New Territories

Here is a new Territories painting, still underway...but at an interesting stage...in the detail one can appreciate how the paint has been applied in different ways, dry, wet, thick, thin etc...






19.4.09

Art Brussels

ARTBrussels 24th-27th April 2009
Rubicon Gallery Hall 3 - Booth 3A-06
Thursday 23, Private View 12:00-4:00pm & Vernissage 4:00pm-10:00pm
Friday 24 -Monday 27 11:00am-7:00pm
www.artbrussels.be
Presenting new work by;
Robert BORDO, Blaise DRUMMOND, Patrick Michael FITZGERALD,
Anita GROENER, Ronnie HUGHES, Tom MOLLOY,
Thomas NOZKOWSKI, Liam O'CALLAGHAN

17.4.09

La Graciosa

With the aim of having a break and a change of scene etc., I have spent the last week in Lanzarote and La Graciosa. The last island is especially beautiful, unspoilt (and almost too photogenic). The volcanic landscapes are out of this world and the colour and light is so totally different from that of Northern Spain. Although I did try to do some work - a bit of drawing and writing - I'm afraid I ended up in a state of stupor and laziness. I did take some photographs though (drawings are not "sketches" for me but works in their own right with an equal value to the paintings, photographs on the other hand are "sketches" and a quick way of documenting things I have seen that initially interest me)...here are some of the things and places I have encountered here:






























3.4.09

En proceso - new paintings

A number of new paintings, nearly all finished, just some tweaking here and there...most are small or medium format and quite varied in theme:





















1.4.09

different light


"One should not underestimate the pleasure of a different light being shed on the same thing"

Alfred Brendel - Interview with Charles Hazelwood for BBC television.