a handful of works so as to form a “portrait” or description of that transmission. Memling’s portraits will be an ideal touchstone in discerning how artworks exceed realism and acquire spiritual weight. This exhibition asserts that the transparent and generous natures of contemporary art can more solidly and articulately lay bare the lyrical moment where god and artist are engaged in the same creative act. Because the contemporary artist is able to leave explicit evidence of the history of the work – from mark-making to the origin of found objects – the criteria inspired by Memling can be isolated. A selection of artists working with inferred gaze, gestural arrangement, and unique surfaces will demonstrate the acquisition of such criteria in a contemporary context. There are no traditional portraits in this group show; instead, the show itself is a portrait – in it, a vivid, trenchant spiritual resonance is rendered through subtle or dramatic means. Julian Osti’s Memorial exemplifies light, deft placement. The objects utilized are only the most essential – a single plastic flower would not be a bouquet and the paper is standard-size. The objective correlative is very generously at work. Osti is wondering openly about how to best assert his sense of justice – highly aware of consequences both expected and mysterious – and in doing so is accessing a high level of compassion. Rachel Reese works with graininess, graphite, and tone. Her works rise from deep unconscious memories and shared experience – she is interested in uniting the floating pasts of disparate viewers into a single non-exclusive image. Reese’s work is insistent in making concrete images from dim dreams; it is made more subtle by Reese’s folds, which are of a prescribed dimension but contain the active, living presence of the artist. In this work, the original images are obtained by photographing a carefully arranged diorama; the viewer’s
gaze is then chosen for them and honed through flattening. Milton Resnick was on a dogged spiritual quest. His work seems to be a constant attempt to further open a valve through which his work could be inhabited by both god and humanity. The elimination of content succeeds in the most enlightened way: the viewer is the creator but also the void. Untitled figure paintings in oil and sketches in gouache boil down archetypal poses into astral forms, figures and trees relating to each other only in the most essential senses of space and time. Resnick’s continued, daily attempts at the same subject matter show the driven energy of a craftsman aided by a higher power. Zoe Nelson is also a painter but boils those essential relationships of space and time down in a manner opposite to Resnick’s. She cuts away to eliminate / enrich and turns inward to make works about herself with a humility that prevents her from speaking for humanity. Because Nelson’s mark-making is explicit and her purpose inward, her works are portraits of herself as a painter; stretcher bars are visible and cut-out pieces often return to the composition. Gone Fishing is an active work, a testimony rendered by a specific gaze, a singular surface, and the twist – Memling-like – of head and shoulders.
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