Carmen Einfinger
Carmen Einfinger, A Solo Show
April 1st - 15th, 2009, opening Thursday, April 1st, 6 to 8pm.
Carmen Einfinger’s works are often a collaborative effort between herself and the audience, which she creates using florescent paints and a variety of other media. Lively, winding shapes contort around each other, cramming and crunching into smaller sizes in one area, then spreading out with great growth and volume in others. The forms in Einfinger’s paintings possess a hectic, frenzied circus-like feel. Ecstatic, neon colors rise above the others in many pieces, such as Inner Machine, where the livid orange pulsates with a visual punch and breaks away from the rest of the piece. However, in some pieces the color palette consists of a much more even saturation, having the viewer focus on the twisting shapes and lines, following them in and out and around each other. In some pieces like Looking In, one can spot areas of a maze-like pattern that seems to dizzy the viewer even more. It is as if this area is a smaller example of the feeling the piece as a whole translates. In such works, Einfinger recreates both her studio, and imagination in a free-for-all, anything-goes space where anyone and everyone can experience inspiration by observing her drawings, paintings, and interact and themselves as he or she sees fit. Scent Of Color, the artist’s recent project won an international competition to transform Dolna Square in Gdansk, Poland is one such work. Transforming the park into a vibrant outdoor gallery Einfinger was the only U.S. based artist selected to participate in the competition. The Broadway Gallery Exhibition will feature a model of the Dolna Square in Gdansk which was a collaborative piece with architect Alex Diez.
Following from the long list of previous artists engaging with relational or participatory practices, from Allan Kaprow’s happenings, to Fluxus’ performances, as well as the contemporary practices of artists associated with “relational” practices, such as Rikrit Tiravanija, Thomas Hirschorn, and Liam Gillick, Einfinger carries these artists’ legacies infusing her work with her own unique voice. Such artists all have one thing in common–activating the spectator. Einfinger is indeed an artist whose works embody the creative act as a social one, one of healing and companionship in which people come together to construct something larger than themselves. This is a spiritual and moral act that implies the betterment of humanity. Within her work, Einfinger sticks to a description that is mostly concerned with her own unique brand of figurative expressionism, sprinkled with some moments and suggestions of anthropomorphism. Again in her piece, Looking In, there are parts that appear to be looking at its audience. In other instances there are forms that have a striking resemblance to hands and fingers, stretching out in exaggerated motions. These hands and eyes convey something human, but with the excited, bright colors and strong forthright gestures they appear almost threatening at times too.
Though at first glance Einfinger’s pieces are a lot for the eyes to take in, seemingly so chaotic. However, upon further inspection one cannot help but take notice of the carefully constructed composition. Transitions in color and the shapes’ volume occur so suddenly, so abruptly there at first doesn’t seem to be logic to it. In stepping back and seeing the piece in its entirety, the viewer finally becomes aware of the delicate balance in everything present. Where one shape is pronounced another recedes, where one color pops another falls flat. It’s as if the artist goes along creating a kind of harmony and sing-song with color and shape through a kind of binary play.
Stefania Mainardi
Stefania Mainardi, A Solo Show
April 1st - 15th, 2009, opening Thursday, April 1st, 6 to 8pm.
Putting Renaissance sculptures at the forefront of her paintings, Mainardi’s work turns these ancient characters into the paintings’ primary subject-matter, making them the focal points in piece. Painted in such an attentive, detailed way these painted statues possess a vitality that makes them appear closer to life. Finding those warm tones in the ordinarily cold marble sometimes gives the viewer a way to find a slight flush in that silent stone and maybe even imagine a pulse underneath that still surface. In other pieces where the facial features and the entire head are not there, just the central part of the body, there seems to be the opposite effect; a reinforcement of the fact that this is a statue being viewed. The proud, staged poise of the figures reiterates the its theatrical intent and unreal presence. Regardless of the varying characters vivacity, there is something in the broader picture that ties all of the artist’s pieces under her own aesthetic.
The juxtaposition of the human figure with geometric or architectural elements is a theme that remains constant throughout all of her works. In some there is only some flatly spread paint cleanly contained within geometric shapes, somewhat referential to Mondrian’s work. In others, there is the same flat application of paint, but with some subtle gradation and movement to and from different shades. There also is some general construction of an architectural setting in the background. In a few it even seems to allude to a similar time and place (as the statues). Set against Roman arcs, pillars, and columns these statues appear right at home, with the exception of the flattened description, distancing itself from the figures, existing in a much more contemporary time. This visual: the divergence of subject-matter and background, the aesthetic gap between object and environment is the main weight behind Mainardi’s paintings.
