Original article in the Los Angeles Times
JUNE 12, 2009 | 10:00 AM

Ten new paintings by Monique van Genderen include some of the most ambitious works this increasingly accomplished artist has produced.

For her third solo show at Happy Lion Gallery — the last was in 2005 — Van Genderen established a uniform format. Each work is 6 feet high and 4 feet wide, familiar dimensions for paintings that address a spectator’s body as well as eye. Their carefully calibrated scale initially moves you into place, effortlessly showing you where to stand to look at them.

When you do, it’s the painting’s surface that first grabs your attention, with specific colors, shapes and the overall composition registering more slowly. Van Genderen’s surfaces are exceedingly strange — alternately transparent and reflective, and in some areas thinly layered so as to border on translucence. Occasionally it’s matte, but a closer look reveals that those are restricted to the white areas, which also define the physical surface of the wooden panels on which she works. The effect heightens the difference between the material and visual distinctions in each abstract picture.

The various levels of transparency and reflection are achieved through different types of paint. Van Genderen employs oil, enamel and alkyd (a resin-based oil paint). Whenever the white ground appears — sometimes as a large expanse, elsewhere as just a narrow sliver between color shapes — it is flat and optically inert, as if sucking all the light out of the room. The surface plane gets underscored as the meeting ground of the corporeal and the visual, the physically embodied and the fleetingly glimpsed.

This bracing dialogue between body and sight continues in the colored forms Van Genderen paints. Some emphasize a single stroke with a wide brush. Others suggest torn sheets of colored paper. (Her past work has included collages and murals made from sheets of cut vinyl.) Handwriting — a kind of pictorial penmanship — frequently comes to mind, and with it the art of calligraphy.

Original announcement

It was high time for Monique van Genderen’s first New York solo show. While the Los Angeles-based artist has become known for large-scale wall pieces such as those she created in Savannah and Philadelphia, this exhibition presented seven works on canvas (84 by 78 or 72 by 48 inches). Each of the nonobjective paintings seems to put forth a specific argument or to make a statement. These bold, self-assured works propose that while things may get a little messy, there is no need to worry, because the artist knows what she is doing.

The compositions are asymmetrical, expanding out from the left or right side of the canvas, with the other side remaining relatively blank. Van Genderen seems to start with a large flat plane, frequently a lobed form that suggests a head or a person in profile. This plane is then traversed, covered and countered by smaller marks. In some cases, veils of paint overlap in shimmering layers. Bars or additional planes assert a structure within the canvas. The artist is keenly aware of the edge, usually stopping short of it, occasionally going off of it. Drips always drain downward, as if to orient us to gravity.

The colors are unlovely but also pleasantly unexpected, with contrasting joyful touches. The first painting you came to in the gallery (all are untitled, 2012) has a giant sunny yellow form leaning in from the upper left corner that seemed to cast its glow over the whole room. Subtle, neutral gray jigsaw-puzzle or floor-plan shapes tumble down the relatively open right-hand side. In each of the paintings, the artist applies dry pigment directly to the wet paint. For example, fluorescent yellow and orange pigments accent a largely brown and violet composition that has untouched gessoed canvas along its left side.

Van Genderen constructs a shallow playing space, reminiscent of that in Diebenkorn’s nonfigurative work. One of the smaller paintings has a large fuchsia shape that is overlaid with a white or light violet scrim of paint. In another work, broomor moplike imprints make one think of palm trees in Los Angeles. Recalling Hockney’s L.A. landscapes in both color (bright red and blue, mossy green) and composition, this work has stripes of teal and fluorescent pink that cascade down from underneath the top layers.

There is a sense that the paintings started as small sketches and were then scaled up, as with Franz Kline’s work. But modifications and additions seem to have happened in the transfer too, as well as improvisations that add a scale-specific richness. These are confident explorations by a skilled and thoughtful painter.

The Canadian-born, Los Angeles-based painter is a master colorist who festishizes the brushstroke to striking effect. For this exhibition of recent paintings she opted for a kind of reverse working method. Instead of creating sketches and studies for a larger painting, van Genderen made the large work first and endeavored, on six smaller canvases, to recreate sections of that painterly abstraction that were as true to the original painting as possible. The small-scale “copies” could theoretically be reassembled to ape the original piece. Works were sold to major collectors in the United States and Canada, many of whom were faithful clients of the gallery. The small paintings were priced at $18,000, and the large, abstract cornerstone piece, Untitled, 2014, had a price tag of $60,000. The artist has a significant following in Germany, Norway, and the rest of Europe as well as in Asia, specifically in Singapore. Here, van Genderen continued to challenge her audience by working beautifully backward. She referred to the smaller fragments as “the contemporary mutation of the physical and philosophical process that goes into painting.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

TAI Modern at Art Miami 2017
December 5^th– 10^th, 2017
One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL

Contact:
Arianna Borgeson
Arianna@taimodern.com
(505) 984-1387

TAI Modern is pleased to announce its participation in the 28^thyear of Art Miami. This year’s fair will be held at a new location at One Herald Plaza, on 14^thStreet between the Venetian and MacArthur Causeways. Art Miami opens with a VIP preview on Thursday, December 5^th, and runs through Sunday, December 10^th. TAI Modern will be exhibiting recent works by contemporary Japanese bamboo masters, as well as contemporary American artists of various media.

For TAI Modern’s return to the fair, the gallery will present works which reflect the continued development of the Japanese bamboo arts. Representing over 35 artists in this medium, including Living National Treasure Fujinuma Noboru, TAI Modern has been the premier gallery for contemporary Japanese bamboo art for over 20 years. Other noteworthy bamboo artists include Honda Syoryu, Fujitsuka Shosei, and Nagakura Kenichi, who each exemplify varying traditional and regional aesthetics with their unique sculptural styles. These artists have pieces in several major American museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is featuring its first exhibit of Japanese bamboo art.

To compliment the selection of Japanese bamboo, TAI Modern will also feature works by contemporary American painters Erik Benson, Siobhan McBride, and Monique van Genderen. Benson’s work is highly detailed with an urban edge, creating cityscapes with his signature technique of cutting shapes from acrylic paint and applying them to canvas. McBride’s work is fragmented and dream-like, her subject matter and color choice represent a combination of the mundane and unfamiliar.  In contrast, van Genderen’s work focuses more on the versatility of her color and her use of direct brushstrokes, which result in highly lyrical compositions.

For more information about Art Miami or to request a pass to the fair, please contact Arianna Borgeson at arianna@taimodern.com, or (505) 984-1387.