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Berg’s work is fast, active, and smooth. She has described her work as being about an “indulgent painterly lust.” For Berg, the space of the surface of a painting is “performative” and her process an energetic jumping back and forth from canvas to canvas. On the other hand, Nesbit’s process appears slower, with a strong relation to gravity. It feels organic, tactile, methodical, and philosophical. His distinctive method strives to subvert traditional picture making by painting the canvas the wrong way, pushing paint from the back towards the front. |
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Tatiana Berg, Spoken, 2012. Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist and Bushwick Storefront.
Tatiana Berg and Evan Nesbit Explore Surfaces, Examine Support
By David Harper
“These works emit the loud outcry of the material, of the very oil or enamel paints themselves. These two artists grapple with the material in a way which is completely appropriate to it and which they have discovered due to their talent. This even gives the impression that they serve the material. Differentiation and integration create mysterious effects.” – Jiro Yoshihara, 1955
Though five decades old, this quote by Jiro Yoshihara, founder of the Japanese avant-garde artistic movement Gutai, seems to anticipate this exhibition, which examines the practices of two contemporary American painters, Tatiana Berg and Evan Nesbit, and their shared affection for material. The exhibition’s title is adapted from the eponymous French artistic movement of 1960s and 70s that, like Gutai before it, shares many of the same concerns including a preoccupation with materiality, especially that which can be considered non-traditional, a sensation of instantaneousness and informalism, and the importance of gesture. The works of Berg and Nesbit fall within this continuum and, at first glance, appear surprisingly related to one another, particularly in light of their East Coast-West Coast divide. Beyond connections to these previous movements, their paintings share many qualities: a strange sense of humor, an exuberant, rich, and sometimes borderline psychedelic palette, various Pop-influenced sensibilities, and a devotion to paint and process.
Berg’s work is fast, active, and smooth. She has described her work as being about an “indulgent painterly lust.” For Berg, the space of the surface of a painting is “performative” and her process an energetic jumping back and forth from canvas to canvas. On the other hand, Nesbit’s process appears slower, with a strong relation to gravity. It feels organic, tactile, methodical, and philosophical. His distinctive method strives to subvert traditional picture making by painting the canvas the wrong way, pushing paint from the back towards the front. Perhaps the furthest distance between the two artists resides in their artistic approach to picture making, and in the diverse, often anomalous methods they employ. Despite their similarities and differences, both artists make paintings that take painting as the subject of their investigation and, in doing so, prove it remains audaciously alive.
Evan Nesbit, Between Trees, 2012. Acrylic and burlap, 30 x 22.5 in. Courtesy of the artist and Bushwick Storefront.
“Surfaces, Supports” opens November 16th, 2012 and runs through December 23rd at Storefront Bushwick, 16 Wilson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY.
