The collective exhibition "Color as Attitude", curated by Alberto Zanchetta, scheduled from 28 September to 15 November 2017 at the Osart Gallery in Milan, through a careful selection of nine works - both historical and recent - aims to enhance the pictorial path by three great American artists such as Ruth Ann Fredenthal, Winston Roeth and Phil Sims.
Color is certainly the common thread that binds the three artists who seem to be painting monochromatic paintings only at first sight. These are works characterized by a radical contemporary expression, which separates them from the minimalist and monochromatic production and cold intellectualism of the conceptualists. What interests him most is the technique and the impression they make on the viewer. The painted surface seems to disappear and open up the vision of an indefinite space thanks to the numerous glazes.
In the works of Ruth Ann Fredenthal, for example, three or four colors are used distributed in different parts of the pictorial support. The surface is animated by slight color variations and wavy lines, almost imperceptible to the naked eye.
His search for micro-tones of pure colour, and their subtle yet complicated relationship, have always been a central theme of his production.
The technique he uses is very scientific: it begins with the choice of the format, the square and that of linen, a linen of Belgian origin usually used by restorers to cover ancient works, up to the application of the colour.
The final result is amazing. The painted surface, given by the multiple layers of color, seems to disappear and open the vision to an indefinite space as stated by Giuseppe Panza in Memories of a collector, one of the first admirers of Ruth Ann Fredenthal's painting.
Thus Phil Sims' pictorial technique involves the application of various layers of paint, usually between forty and sixty, to cover the entire surface of the canvas with horizontal and vertical brushstrokes.
One quality of Phil Sims' drawing technique is that, layer after layer, the color takes on and releases a unique luminosity. Thanks to his innate sensitivity and accurate technique, the final result is amazing: the final color is created by adding up the various brushstrokes, filtering to the surface.
Winston Roeth paints monochromatic or two-tone panels often combined to form a single installation. Working with raw pigment and tempera, he creates dense opaque surfaces, sometimes painting the outline with a contrasting colour.
Roeth plays with different combinations of lines to explore their effects on human perception.
The phenomenology of colour, light and space represents a central theme of Roeth's pictorial practice.
After years of exploring light and color, he comes to develop a precise technique. Using a brush he spreads the pure pigment, layer by layer, mixing it with water and a polyurethane emulsion, until the entire surface of the canvas has been covered. All his efforts are focused on trying to find the right color saturation, so that pure light flows from the pigments.
Ruth Ann Fredenthal. Biographical notes
Ruth Ann Fredenthal was born in Detroit, Michigan.
Daughter of artists, she drew and painted animals as a child, sometimes in abstract form, and decided to be a painter at the age of three.
His art education has brief interludes at the Philadelphia Museum Institute and the Yale Norfolk Summer School, but his real training takes place at Bennington College, under the aegis of Paul Feeley, whom he considers the only living artist to have influenced her.
After graduating from Bennington College, he won the prestigious Fulbright scholarship for painting and went to Florence, where he stayed for a year. Later he returns to New York.
Determined to continue the great tradition of oil painting, the artist uses all the techniques related to this pictorial discipline.
He currently lives and works in New York.
Winston Roeth. Biographical notes
Winston Roeth was born in 1945 in Chicago.
He studied at the Universities of Illinois and New Mexico, then at the Royal College of Art in London.
The artist's production dates back to the XNUMXs and starts from an investigation into the perception of colour. Over the course of ten years he has set up numerous solo exhibitions at the Stark Gallery New York, others have been inaugurated in the cities of Basel, London, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Sydney, Palma de Mallorca, Frankfurt, Santa Fe.
There are numerous collaborations with choreographic and theatrical installations. You have also carried out teaching activities both in Chicago and in New York.
Lives and works in Beacon, USA.
Phil Sims. Biographical notes
Phil Sims was born in 1940 in Richmond, California.
Before dedicating himself to painting, Sims worked as a potter and created works in ceramics.
In the 60s, he enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute. Today, he is considered one of the greatest colorist painters internationally.
At the beginning of his artistic training, he studied the use that Abstract Expressionist artists make of color, always keeping an eye on European painting more.
His artistic career is initially linked to the Radical Painters group. However, in 1984, after the exhibition curated by Thomas Krens at the Williams College Museum of Art in Massachusetts, the group decided to break up and each artist followed a more autonomous and personal path of artistic research.
Today, Sims lives and works in the United States, but frequently exhibits in Europe, both in public spaces and in private galleries.
Image: Winston Roeth, Portrait Paintings, 2012-2015, Kremer pigments and polyurethane dispersion on aluminum Dibond panels. 101,6 x 76,2. Ph Bruno Bani. Courtesy Osart Gallery, Milan
