Continuing through May 2, 2014
After the camera was invented "realism" was rapidly delegated to the photographer's domain. It was only a matter of time before painters naturally turned to other aesthetic possibilities: abstraction, minimalism, expressionism, etc. Now consider Craig Antrim and Ron Linden, two veteran, acclaimed artists who use their respective creative visions to explore painting in the 21st-Century. Though they are both interested in pursuing the challenges of today's art world (particularly since the advent of the digital camera), their approach couldn't be more disparate. While both artists work within the broad perimeters of minimal abstraction, Antrim's canvases are bold, structural, colorful paintings. Each is built up from thick pigment applied with broad, gestural brushstrokes that distantly echo the New York School. Paintings such as "Gold as Fragile as Bone," "Balance Precarious," and "Vocatis Adque" are poetic, mysterious and mesmerizing from the first glance.
Linden, on the other hand — having worked in as a Hollywood scenic artist for over 30 years — produces hard-edge, centric, non-descript objects and lines. They are executed in a subdued palette of acrylic and graphite. His imagery is ambiguous, intriguing and invites varied interpretation. Good examples are "Otto" or "Au Fait,” round black disks and lines on muted, backgrounds of negative space. Like the Mannerists or Dadaists of previous periods of aesthetic (and political) turbulence, individual artists point us in the right direction and chart the way through art history. Count Antrim and Linden among such guides.
