Ideas & Influences

Ideas & Influences

Artist’s notebook: Nate Ethier

On the occasion of “Heavy Light,” Nate Ethier’s second solo show at David Richard Gallery, Two Coats of Paint invited him to share ten ideas and influences that inform his complex, pulsating abstractions. He is keenly interested in kinetic motion, precision, and repetition, and credits Agnes Martin for the sense of happiness and innocence that suffuses his paintings. Most importantly, he reveals a penchant for close looking: “You can learn a great deal about light and color from a slow walk in the woods.” The show includes twelve stunning paintings and is on view through June 27.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Artist’s Notebook: Elisabeth Condon

Painter Elisabeth Condon divides her time between Manhattan and Florida, where she currently has new work on view in “Tempus Fugit,” a solo show at Emerson Dorsch Gallery. Two Coats of Paint invited Condon to share ten ideas and influences that shape her ebulliently expansive paintings and installations. The artist’s influences come from near and far, from her excessively designed childhood home in California to the Astor Chinese Garden Court at the Metropolitan Museum and the furniture Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata crafted from industrial materials. For Condon, kinetic and vigorous layering are crucial to her process.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Artist’s Notebook: Jim Condron

In addition to his regular practice of solitary drawing, painting, and sculpture, Jim Condron is working on a project that involves an array of other artists, writers, and thinkers. The pieces produced are on display in “Collected Things,” a solo exhibition at Art Cake, through June 17. On the occasion of this charming and poignant show, _Two Coats of Paint_ invited Condron to share some of the artists, objects, and ideas that inform his work. Here’s his list.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Artist’s notebook: Sue McNally

Artist Sue McNally, a 2015 Two Coats of Paint Resident Artist, lives in Newport, Rhode Island, where her recent work is on view at Overlap, a new artist-run space in the neighborhood. Overlap founder Susie Matthews, who has been making and showing her artwork in Rhode Island for over 25 years, wants the space to appeal to creative thinkers who live amid a bustling tourist trade that favors seascapes over more challenging propositions. To celebrate the opening of the gallery and Sue’s show, Two Coats of Paint invited her to share some of the ideas and influences that have helped shape her work over the years.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Julie Wolfe: Hunting and gathering

Conceptual artist Julie Wolfe’s show, “Opposing Forces,” at HEMPHILL in Washington, DC, is rooted in her practice of gathering images and data to explore the world around us and, just as importantly, our interior lives. Her intent is to guide the viewer through richly conceived systems of color, form, and language that often serve as markers of time.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Artist’s Notebook: Erika Ranee

Several years ago, Two Coats of Paint encountered Erika Ranee’s paintings during an open studio event at the Marie Sharpe Walsh Foundation. Soaked with vibrant color, her large-scale abstractions were exuberant conglomerations of snippets culled from the overlooked details of everyday life. On the occasion of her “Zip-A-Dee-A,” a solo show earlier this year at the Mazmanian Gallery at Framingham State University, Two Coats invited Ranee to share ten ideas or influences that inform her recent work.

Continue Reading →
Ideas & Influences

Artist’s notebook: Adam Simon

Adam Simon could best be described as a conceptual painter. Based in Brooklyn, he has been painting and organizing community projects like Four Walls and the Fine Art Adoption Network for more than 25 years. Lately, though, he’s put community projects aside to work in the studio, where his ironically elegant new abstract paintings riff on the imagery of commercial logos.

Continue Reading →
1 2