Howard Scott Gallery Presents Recent Works on Paper, Opens 12/2

Recent Works on Paper

(Thursday) 2 December - (Saturday) 8 January 2010
Reception for the artists : Thursday, 2 December, six to eight p.m.

Howard Scott Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of Recent Works on Paper by four international emerging artists: Rolf Behm, Francisco Castro-Leñero, Rebecca Salter and FrEd Stonehouse.

Rolf Behm - Citing the main characteristics of his work as being color, light, and space, he employs a combination of acrylic paint and oil - in thin and transparent layers, one above the other - in "illuminating abstract forms and giving depth to the surface". He strives for ambiguity in his work, wanting to set into motion the viewer's ability to evoke his or her own associations and imaginings.

The artist studied with the renowned German artist, Markus Lupertz from 1973 to 1977, spent a year in London on a DAAD grant, and worked in Florence for a year (1984) as artist in residence at the Villa Romana. He has had solo exhibitions with Galerie Springer in Berlin, Heike Curtze in Vienna, and - in 2006 - a ten-year survey of work in Koblenz (at Evangelisches Stift).

Francisco Castro Leñero - One of the principal strengths of Castro-Leñero's work has long been the vibrancy and beauty of the role of color, which he weds to the geometric organization of his works. The depth and subtlety of these works continue to reveal his sensitivity to color through the interweaving of deep reds, mustard yellows and earth colors, in interaction with black and alterEd Whites constitute a marked departure from the sunlight-filled palettes which bespeaks his Central American environment and heritage.

Long esteemed as one of the most gifted painters of his generation in his native Mexico, Francisco Castro-Leñero continues to exhibit widely, including his participation in the 2005 exhibition at the Reina Sofia in Madrid, Eco: Arte Contemporáneo México, co-organized by the critic and curator, Osvaldo Sánchez. His work is held in numerous museum collections, including - in this country - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Museum of Modern Art, NY, and San Antonio Museum of Art, TX.

Rebecca Salter's paintings reward patient, prolonged study. Their calm [and calming] orchestrations of subtly nuanced colors and abutting rectilinear areas belie the painstaking processes involved in their making. Close viewing reveals a dense network of both parallel and crossing lines - some incised and others produced by a very precise dripping / pouring technique. Successive, thin applications of acrylic paint - sometimes in brilliant hues - are gradually overlaid with the linear webs of quieter colors - blues, greys, rust-reds, and earth tonalities. Those who sense an Oriental, or Eastern, aspect to the paintings' approach to color and to spatial relationships will not be surprised to learn that the artist studied and did research at a university in Kyoto for two years, then stayed on in Japan, living and working as an artist.

Salter will have her first survey retrospective exhibition ("Into the Light of Things") in the Spring of 2011 at the Yale Center for the British Art, New Haven, CT. She will also participate in a Works on Paper Survey at the Tate London, UK. The painter was born in Sussex in 1955. She has had over twenty solo exhibitions beginning in 1981.

FrEd Stonehouse's art is resolutely humanist. His subjects are despairing and freakish characters cast from a motley pool. They often appear beaten down, broken, and drained of their humanity. Many of their visages bear a resemblance to Stonehouse -the artist as everyman.

FrEd Stonehouse was born in 1960 and has been exhibiting with regularity in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin and Mexico since the early 90s. His work was the subject of a ten-year survey exhibition at Madison Art Center (Wisconsin). A recent catalog is available.

Photo Credit: Rolf Behm