ArtSeen
100 words on Mike Cockrill
100 words on Mike Cockrill
31 Grand
March 17–April 16, 2006
Mike Cockrill, “The Hunters,” 2006. Courtesy 31GRAND.Mike Cockrill’s current exhibition of paintings at 31 Grand is entitled Over the Garden Wall. One part John Currin, two parts Balthus, Cockrill’s garden is a place where childhood play meets adult sexuality in an elixir equally suggestive and nostalgic. Children poised on the verge of adolescence feign poses to determine if they fit in. Puppy dogs and picnics abound. Cockrill’s painting feels effortless and his drawings embody the easy grace children naturally possess. His symbolism is perhaps best when it’s subtle: his unprepossessing “Girl before a Mirror” is as effective as his art history laden tour de force, “Naughty.”
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
Ouattara Watts: Paintings
By Andrew Paul WoolbrightMAY 2022 | ArtSeen
Tathata is a Buddhist sentiment that translates roughly to “the suchness of things.” In practice, it’s trying to understand the essence of something before words can circumscribe it. For forty years, Ouattara Watts has similarly resisted being assimilated or codified. His exhibition Paintings, currently on view at Karma, reveals a dedicated and thoughtful practice of painting that can only be achieved through the experiences of a world traveler.
Christina Quarles: Come In From An Endless Place
By Patricia LewyJULY/AUG 2023 | ArtSeen
The figure paintings on view in Christina Quarles’s exhibition of new work at Hauser & Wirth are like nothing you’ve seen before. In them, arching curves sweep, spin, fall, and rise in what seem like single gestures, so it is startling to realize that those lyrically abstract lines actually limn the contours of distended and knotted arms, legs, torsos, buttocks, breasts, and heads.
Melike Kara: Emine’s Garden
By William CorwinSEPT 2023 | ArtSeen
As opposed to a memory palace, Melike Kara has planted a memory garden on the floor of the gallery at the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen. The composition of Emine’s Garden (named after her grandmother) is ambiguous: five large paintings on canvas lie flat, slightly raised from the floor, while laminated directly to that floor is a labyrinth of grainy black-and-white family photographs.
Martin Kippenberger: Paintings 1984–1996
By Alfred Mac AdamAPRIL 2023 | ArtSeen
Missing are the drunken streetlamps, the impromptu metro entrances, and other sculptural objects, but what we do have makes us realize that each piece has infinite possibilities. In other words, these eight paintings are a valid sample of Kippenberger at his outrageous, parodic best.
