Principal Juror – Dominic Molon, Pamela Alper Associate Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL

Editor's Comments - Over the twelve years we have published New American Paintings, our readership has sought to recognize a regionally stylistic thread in the work selected for any given edition. Both jurors and readers have commented on the fact that there is no clearly defined “regional” style in the majority of work published. While regional tendencies do exist, they are often subtle and hidden within a diverse collection of artwork––a fact that will continue to please some and frustrate others as we release our 59th edition.

Within the diversity of our journal, themes do appear. They are the motivations for creating the work, and are revealed in the artists’ commentaries. Surprisingly, the reasons are often quite similar, provoked by timeless concepts such as memories of the past, problems of the present, politics, nature, the environment, and the complexities of being human. Of course, there is also the attraction to the tactile nature of the materials involved. These concepts are explored repeatedly. They continually provoke questions, and each generation replies with its own discrete perceptions. Accordingly, the artists’ responses evolve in a manner that is personal, unique, modern. Each interpretation will undoubtedly bear resemblance to something that has come before, yet it is the ongoing process of reinterpretation that guides the next generation.

In the selections of our juror, Dominic Molon, the Pamela Alper Associate Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, several categories emerge: abstraction and landscape, nature and urbanization, destruction and conformity. They appear throughout this edition, echoing the intentions of the artists themselves. Architectural, urban, suburban, and non-urban environments commingle, occasionally in a single piece.

The evocation of landscape and the natural world is undeniable in the abstract work of Robert Bain, Leslie Baum, Diane Christiansen, and David Schutter. Design-like elements and recognizable natural forms emerge from otherwise nonrepresentational surfaces. Tova Carlin restricts her natural and architectural elements to a single plane, while the realms of the natural and urban environments combine in the work of Kristoffer Holmgren, Shona Macdonald, Melissa Oresky, and Michelle Wasson, referencing the human influence on our surroundings. In this work, the abstract and representational struggle for control.

For Ryan Kapp and David Linneweh, the suburban dwelling becomes iconic, rather than personal. Homogeneity dominates and nature is reduced to a semi-abstracted, geometrical backdrop. Similarly, geometry is prominent in Karen Pearl’s cityscapes where the buildings are stripped to their necessary elements, a subtle mixture of forms and a somber palette the sole inhabitants of her unpeopled streets. Isolating fragments of our urban creations (parking lots, highways), Melanie Manos floats them in an undefined space in order to comment on our brazen reconfiguration of the natural world.

Conversely, the single-line drawings that comprise Sue Friesz’s canvases press against the edges of the frame. Here, there is little room for nature, evidenced by the few treetops wedged between the overwhelming accumulations of architecture. Yasemin Kaçkar uses urban elements to situate the viewer in her paintings, but the city disintegrates into an abstracted set of forms, ironically evocative of the landscape.

In the work of each of these artists, critique cannot be ignored. Urban planning, the unnatural insertion of the natural into the urban sphere, the suffocation of nature, and the acceptance of a homogenized culture are problems these artists demand that we, as viewers, consider.

Jessica Lee, Managing Editor