Paul Resika's 8+8 Recent Paintings on Exhibit Through February 9

Lori Bookstein Fine Art and Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects announce a joint exhibition of the work of Paul Resika. While the exhibition at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects will highlight eight works by the artist, one from each of the last eight decades, the exhibition at Lori Bookstein Fine Art will feature eight of the artist's most recent works.

Resika's latest series depicts abstracted floral forms that the artist observed at his pond in Provincetown, MA. A range of canvases from dark and moody to fantastically bright with color, offer a world of vegetative life that seem at times both distant and familiar. Rhythmic patterns of lily pads constellate vast expanses of canvas in a way that envelops the viewer and begs for contemplation. Indeed, Resika's Ponds are infinite spaces full of nostalgia in the true Homeric sense ?? places of homecoming tinged with longing for the greater world.

The artist's most recent exploration of the natural world has also allowed him to become increasingly expressive. Resika himself considers his recent immersion into nature a kind of "late baptism" whereby he was able to draw influence from such abstract expressionists as Milton Resnick, all the while maintaining his signature high-chroma palette and lyrical compositions. Poet Charles Simic writes of Resika's recent works:
Stripped of any hint of allegory or fable, they recall at different times expressionism, cubism and even surrealism. They leave the viewer awed and delighted that a style so seemingly simple can be so commanding, so highly-original, memorable and beautiful.

Paul Resika was born in 1928 in New York City. As a teenager, he studied under Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown; departing for Venice and Rome in the early 1950s to study the old masters. After casting aside Hofmann's abstract principles, his Italian palette turned sober and descriptive. Upon his return to the United States, Resika devoted himself increasingly to the exploration of light and color, and the synthesis of abstraction and representation. Over his six decade-long career, Resika has exhibited at the Peridot Gallery, Graham Modern, Long Point Gallery, Berta Walker Gallery, Hackett-Freedman Gallery, and Salander-O'Reilly Galleries. Resika is represented by Lori Bookstein Fine Art in New York and Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, MA.

Resika's work belongs to the collections of the Hood Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among numerous others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1984) and has been elected Academician at the National Academy of Design (1978) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1994).

Paul Resika: Eight + Eight will be on view from January 10 - February 9, 2013. This exhibition will be accompanied by a printed brochure. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, January 10th from 6-8 pm. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 am to 6:00 pm.