Jennifer Sanchez: Ned Vena & Todd Chilton Kickin' Ass

Ned Vena at Clifton Benevento

Installation View

really enjoyed both of these shows for the works' bold geometric shapes, simplicity and materiality. again wanted to touch the work, but that's frowned upon.

from the press release:

The paintings in this exhibition are a reaction to an anxiety that developed after several years of making similar paintings over and over again, not so much as a conceptual strategy, but as a compulsion, an endgame, something that I haven’t been able to control or break out of. I wanted to apply the anxiety generated through this type of repetition to the process of painting; to make the same painting over and over again in a single work, to have one body of work generate two (or more???). - Ned Vena

Untitled, 2012, Garvey ink on canvas, 84 x 48 inches

Untitled, 2012, Garvey ink and acrylic on canvas, 84 x 48 inches

Todd Chilton at Feature Inc.

Up and Down, 2012; oil paint on linen over panel; 18 x 16”

from the press release:

I build the paintings by layering hand drawn patterns that are always bounded by the edge of the canvas. The paintings exhibit imperfections that are a result of handmade patterns and geometry. This often heightens optical effects in the patterns, and serves to create a situation in which the viewer becomes aware of the experience of looking. I want to create images that convey at once a sense of ambiguity, purposefulness, and humor. At times they have a sense of openness on one hand and resistance on the other. I am interested in what happens in the middle. Meaning comes through determined imprecision, broken or sagging structures and the obvious hand that created the painting. This underscores the physical experience that takes place between a viewer and my work through surface, scale and optical qualities, which subvert, or sustain, a sense of balance.