Artists kept making paintings in 2013, and they did so in ever more inventive ways. If any single word can sum up the overriding concern of many younger artists over the past few years it is process. As of late, many painters have defined themselves not so much with a specific image or style, but with the way in which they go about “producing” their work. Fire extinguishers, bleach, the sun, printing technologies and even spaghetti have all been employed in the quest for aesthetic advancement. For these artists, the way in which an artwork is made becomes deeply embedded in the meaning of their work. The results of such technical explorations can occasionally come of as gimmicky, but, when successful, they can lead to extraordinary art and new ways of thinking about the medium of paint.

What does painting hold for 2014? If a quick survey of upcoming museum shows, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial is any indication, it will be more widely exhibited and talked about than ever, and mature artists such as Dona Nelson (a 2012 Painters to Watch pick) and Suzanne McClelland will, more and more, have their long overdue day. I will also go out on a limb and say that, after several years where abstraction has been the dominant language of painting, representational work will start to mount a comeback. Among the hundreds of artists I consider each year while publishing New American Paintings, I have noticed a considerable uptick in the number of young painters working with recognizable imagery, some in, dare I say it, almost traditional modes. (And yes, I am aware that representational painting never left, but the institutions that make up the so-called art world have been preoccupied with other things in recent years.)

Dona Nelson. Courtesy of Thomas Erben Gallery, New York, NY.  

Over the past year I conducted dozens of studio visits, traveled to numerous art fairs, and saw hundreds of gallery and museum shows. The list of Painters to Watch in 2014 is made up of some new discoveries, a few artists who, in my mind, presented breakout work this year, and a few old favorites who deserve wider attention. For the purposes of this list, I am defining the activity of painting as broadly as possible. Traditional definitions of media have become less and less important for emerging artists, and, no doubt, some of the listed artists would not consider themselves to be painters per se. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher

Who is on your list?

Kathryn Lynch is an artist much concerned with illumination.  The trees and grasslands and waterways she paints are saturated with the glow of the sun or the shine of the moon; her portraits of New York buildings are abuzz with the colorful artificiality of city lights at night; and her recent series of tugboats show us vessels passing with dreamlike ease through ghostly-bright fog, or else bobbing gently on a shining Hudson, trapped between a giant red sun and that sun’s smudged reflection on the river.   In all of Lynch’s paintings there’s an interesting interplay of light and dark, and in the best of her work there’s also a sense of enlightenment – a feeling that behind her flat forms and lullaby colors, serious truths are layered. – Jonathan Lee, Guest Contributor

Kathryn Lynch | Blossom Explosion, 2012, 60 x 48 inches

Brice Marden imbues surfaces with a palpable sensuality. Photos only hint at the evidence displayed throughout Graphite Drawings, Marden's latest solo exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York and the first of its kind devoted solely to his significant early works on paper. — Brian Fee, Austin contributor

Brice Marden | Patent Leather Valentine,1968, Graphite, beeswax, and red pastel crayon on a trimmed sheet of Strathmore natural white paper, 16 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches. © Brice Marden / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery.

Since her LA emergence in 2002, Rebecca Campbell (NAP #37) has been crafting sumptuous, painterly scenes that range from the poignantly quotidian to the kaleidoscopically fantastical.  The embrace of her paint handling and leaning towards large formats lend heroic, almost legendary proportions to the men, women, and children who inhabit what often appears to be a magically-real version of domestic, middle-class life.  But the dazzle of the paint does not distract or disguise – her pictures look in the eye what is often relegated to the nostalgic, the sentimental, and the emotional.  In the hands of a lesser artist, images of this sort frequently fall outside the purview of contemporary art.  Campbell, however, forges a meditation on autobiography that demands a closer investigation.  The depth of her imagery upends and reclaims motifs such as family, children, rainbows, fireworks, lightning bolts, and mushroom clouds with such deftness that their full meaning seem linked to their depiction in paint. - Jason Ramos, Los Angeles Contributor

Rebecca Campbell | Just Another Diamond Day, 2010, oil on canvas, 72 x 64 1/2 inches. Private collection. Image courtesy of LA Louver, Venice, CA

Co-exhibited with Ty Pownall’s sculptural works in Land/Mark, Gretchen Batcheller's bold and bright oil paintings are currently on view at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Malibu.  Viewers to the museum are at once confronted with the beige and ivory tones of Pownall's mixed media sculptures offset by Batcheller’s vivid and inviting paintings. – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

Gretchen Batcheller | Abstract Generalities, Oil on canvas, 2013. Photograph by Yao Li and Courtesy of The Frederick R. Weisman Museum.

Miles Cleveland Goodwin paints images of a rustic, evasive place few might guess to be his home. Flocks of crows, a floating black ray, wiry snakeskins, lonely doves and other unsentimental creatures inhabit the dusty roads and muddy skies seen earlier this year in his series A Long Road Home, at Froelick Gallery, in Portland, OR and now continue in Montebella Road, at Greg Kucera Gallery, in Seattle, WA. Eschewing the signs of routine we expect to find in the place someone resides, Goodwin’s desolate scenes, referencing a road that he lives on in Mississippi, have the air of true remoteness—the kind that inspires countless questions among onlookers and outsiders, despite the underlying sense that they never will get any real answers.

Miles Cleveland Goodwin | Trapped, 2012, Oil on canvas, 24 X 36 inches. Image courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery.

In a delightfully revealing exhibition, shucked & silked at Barbara Davis Gallery, the multifaceted Rebecca Ward presents new work that not only references on her ambitious installation practices with electrical tape, but also indicates interesting new territory her studio practice is headed. Ward’s newest offering highlights her material fluency through her synthesis of painting, installation and sculpture. - Claude Smith, Albuquerque/Santa Fe Contributor

Rebecca Ward | Believers and Deceivers, 2013, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches; image courtesy of Barbara Davis Gallery

New American Paintings Southern Competition Deadline is December 31st.

Artists residing in: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia,Washington DC, West Virginia

Love them, or hate them, art fairs are now a firmly entrenched part of the art world’s commercial mechanism. Every art fair has its own unique feel and vibe. Some are stately and serene, while others are brash and raucous. Of all the smaller art fairs that take place annually, perhaps none is able to generate the amount of pure heat that the annual installment of the NADA Art Fait in Miami is able to. The VIP preview of NADA has consistently been one of the most eagerly anticipated events on the art fair circuit. On opening morning the biggest collectors in the world, and those on down the food chain, our lined up for what can only be described as a feeding frenzy.

This year’s installment of NADA, Opening Thursday December 5^th, is sure to have manufacturers of tiny red dots working overtime to meet the demand. The fair can now be previewed on the excellent art web site Artsy. I spent some time checking it out and after the jump are ten things that are Must See as far as I am concerned. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher

David X. Levine at Knowmoregames

Yesterday I posted past featured New American Paintings artists that will appear at this year's Art Basel Miami Beach. In today's post, I have selected other significant artists that I am eager to see. As I mentioned yesterday, I focused mostly on emerging artists. There is obviously a plethora of historic and blue chip work that will be on view as well, but I tend to focus on the new and interesting at these things.

Guyton\Walker
Greene Naftali Gallery (Our vote for booth that will sell out the quickest)

Enjoy the list...and if you are in Miami, please let us know what looks good to you. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher