STEVEN SEINBERG | 2020 - 2021

STEVEN SEINBERG 2020 - 2021

STEVEN SEINBERG

2020 - 2021

PA I N T I N G S A N D W O R K S O N PA P E R E S S AY B Y P E T E R F R A N K

E ssa y: S te ve n Seinberg: Rece nt Wor k, 2021

by P eter Fran k C o ve r: (D e tail) List en, 2 02 1 O il and graphit e on canv a s 60x 50 in ches O ppo site: S tudio, 20 20 N ex t: (D e tail) Lagoon (1 6), 2021 O il, ch arcoal and grap hite on c a nv a s 76x 120 inch es

P ublish ed in 20 22 by B ILL LOW E GA LLERY, A tla nta , U SA. A ll rig hts reserved.

© 2 0 2 2 B ILL L OW E GALL E RY © 2 0 2 2 S t e ve n Se i nb e rg Stu dio

STEVEN SEINBERG: RECENT WORK Peter Frank When is a mark not a mark? When it is not merely a mark. What makes a mark more than a mark? A mark maker with broader cause, one who seeks to reach beyond the clatter of marks and make a language of and place for marks. Marks as space. Marks as notes. Marks as meanings. Marks as contexts. Marks as sensations. Marks as sounds. Marks as weather.

Steven Seinberg’s broader cause expands beyond his marks and at the same time plunges into his marking. For years Seinberg has experimented with medium and manner to determine the best ways of harnessing marks to their provocative potential. He has determined two distinct formulas for doing so.

One provides picture, the other notation. One provides atmosphere, the other thought. Neither is a pure manifestation of marking; the marking process, certainly as presented in the austere reflexivity of post-minimalist practice, does not engage Seinberg.

Rather, the resonance of his marking emerges from a lyrical, associative sensibility, one reliant on the poetic connection and sensual, even somatic frisson, characteristic of the gestural abstraction that predominated, in the United States and abroad, in the years after World War II. It would not be ambitious to regard Seinberg’s works on paper – collages especially – as a kind of quasi-visual verse, or his paintings as passages in the account of some epic quest.

Is Seinberg, then, striving to revive a mid-century sensibility? Do his fogs and fragments, his moody vistas and scrapbook composites, point us to any particular time and/or place and/or event? They can; but the evocations are in the eye and mind – and heart – of the beholder. If in fact Seinberg wishes to resuscitate the language of painterly abstraction, it’s the evocative aspect – the poetry of vision – that he wants to bring to the fore. What we behold are the elements of song and memory, dream and detail, ingredients for the imagination and at the same time discrete receptacles for it. The tone is one of ecstasy suffused throughout melancholy in the paintings, vice versa – contemplative retreat signaled by the play of assembly – in the collages. The marks variously rain on the eyes and lead them on treasure hunts, forming almost palpable fields of moisture in the paintings, or setting out documentation, at once familiar and arcane, in the work on paper.

Poetry and gesture thus power Seinberg’s work, binding it not to a previous era in art but to enduring qualities that we associate with pictorial conditions available throughout the history of painting (and not just in the West). Seinberg’s mists and drizzles, for instance, recall J.M.W. Turner’s; but there is a change in the weather between them. The 19th century Englishman wielded fog like a soft monster swallowing the world; the 21st century American employs it as a cleansing force, inhaling hexes and toxins and easing the soul’s stress, a kind of brush-applied mantra to becalm the soul.

Note well, though; some of Seinberg’s magic-breath canvases offer more tranquility than others, and none ever devolves into optical anodyne. Indeed, key to their healing effect is the paintings’ reliance on a reticent palette expressed in a scumble of, yes, marks, gentle and alluring but not pretty. This is food, not clothing, for the retina.

Seinberg’s collages, as noted, serve a more or less complementary function to his paintings. The vocabulary of forms certainly overlaps, but it deploys to different effect in the work on paper than in their canvas counterparts. It is as easy to see the two bodies of work, at least recently, as that produced by two different hands as by one.

This, of course, is to Seinberg’s credit; we have come to understand that artists are more than likely to work in more than one fashion at a time, that the breadth of their practice almost requires variety and relaxed (if not downright unbound) possibility. The underlying sensibility of the artist emerges nevertheless – allowing us to appreciate and unpack that sensibility that much further. Seinberg’s collages and his paintings share certain factors – rough silhouettes of plants, informal repeated mark-motifs – but involve them in markedly different visual experiences, ordered and composed very differently, scaled very differently, offering

very different notions of texture and touche. Where the paintings offer enveloping respite, the collages present another kind of meditative release, resembling ancient, partly deciphered, partly undecipherable texts whose illuminations add to the mystery by becoming entangled in the calligraphy of the page.

The work Steven Seinberg has produced in the last couple of years has seen a certain refinement and focus of eloquence. We might attribute this to the relative isolation current events have forced upon him, as on the rest of us; but these moments of evolution and artistic growth have occurred in Seinberg’s studio before, so they are hardly unique to a pandemic. The heightened elegance and sensual coherence of the recent work mark a renewed clarity in the artist’s oeuvre, but that clarity is even more valuable and meaningful to us than it is to him: this kind and modest beauty is balm to our plague-wracked eyes. There’s more than a bit of truth to the conception of the artist as a shaman. Certainly, in these accretions of marks, these assemblies of strokes and lines and clusters and washes and elusive but potent images, Seinberg reaches out to us to share in the healing.

Los Angeles December 2021

YOURSELF 2020 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches Private Collection

SHIFT 2020 Oil and graphite on canvas 70x60 inches Private Collection

OPEN 2020 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches Private Collection

Note well, though; some of Seinberg’s magicbreath canvases offer more tranquility than others, and none ever devolves into optical anodyne. Indeed, key to their healing effect is the paintings’ reliance on a reticent palette expressed in a scumble of, yes, marks, gentle and alluring but not pretty. This is food, not clothing, for the retina.

(Detail) Open, 2020

OPENED 2020 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches

TOUCH 2020 Oil and graphite on canvas 80x70 inches Private Collection

ENOUGH (1-2) 2020 Mixed media on paper 18x15 inches Private Collection

CONNECTED (1-2) 2020 Oil on paper 20x15 inches

SYSTEM 2021 Oil on paper 28x22 inches

LAGOON 2020 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches Private Collection

LAGOON (16) 2021 Oil, charcoal and graphite on canvas 76x120 inches Private Collection

I LIVE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x80 inches Private Collection

Rather, the resonance of his marking emerges from a lyrical, associative sensibility, one reliant on the poetic connection and sensual, even somatic frisson, characteristic of the gestural abstraction that predominated, in the United States and abroad, in the years after World War II. It would not be ambitious to regard Seinberg’s works on paper – collages especially – as a kind of quasi-visual verse, or his paintings as passages in the account of some epic quest.

(Detail) I Live In The Twenty-First Century, 2021

LISTEN 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches

HOVER 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 80x64 inches

I HAVE SEEN ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT I HAVE SEEN TOO MUCH 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 64x50 inches

I AM WAITING 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 38x30 inches Private Collection

REST 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 38x60 inches

LIFT 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

MORNING 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

REST (2) 2021 Oil, acrylic and graphite on linen 38x60 inches

CLEARED 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 50x64 inches

CHANGE 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 64x50 inches

What we behold are the elements of song and memory, dream and detail, ingredients for the imagination and at the same time discrete receptacles for it. The tone is one of ecstasy suffused throughout melancholy in the paintings, vice versa – contemplative retreat signaled by the play of assembly – in the collages.

(Detail) Change, 2021

LAGOON (19) 2021 Oil, charcoal and graphite on linen 50x64 inches

LAGOON (18) 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x80 inches

YOUR (1-2) 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

PATH (5-2) 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

A mark maker with broader cause, one who seeks to reach beyond the clatter of marks and make a language of and place for marks. Marks as space. Marks as notes. Marks as meanings.

Marks as contexts. Marks as sensations. Marks as sounds. Marks as weather.

(Detail) Your, 2021

LOST MEMORY 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches

YOUR BODY SPILLED ON MY BODY 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 60x50 inches

LIGHT 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

LIGHT (2) 2021 Mixed media on paper 20x15 inches

WATER AND WIND AND STONE 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 70x60 inches

TRUTH OF WATER 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 70x80 inches Private Collection

I SLEPT IN YOUR HEAD 2021 Oil and graphite on canvas 70x80 inches

STEVEN SEINBERG 1969 1994 2001

Born: Brooklyn, New York BFA: Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, Georgia MFA: Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia

Solo Exhibitions: 2022 2021 2019 2017

2016

2015 2014 2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Foosaner Museum, “Steven Seinberg”, Melbourne, Florida Bill Lowe Gallery, “Only the Light on the Sea”, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, “Under Light and Water”, New Orleans, Louisiana Foosaner Museum, Frits Van Eeden Gallery, Melbourne, Florida Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia Bryant Street Gallery, “Recent Paintings”, Palo Alto, California Soren Christensen Gallery, “Point of Origin”, New Orleans, Louisiana Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, “Water’s Edge”, New Orleans, Louisiana Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Gallery One, Nashville, Tennessee Selby Fleetwood Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Haen Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Brenda Taylor Gallery, New York, New York Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana

2007

2006

2005 2004

2003

2002

2001 2000 1999 1998

1997 1996 1995 1994

Bill Lowe Gallery, “Flows Forward”, Atlanta, Georgia Bill Lowe Gallery, “Flows Forward”, Santa Monica, California Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Hodges Taylor Gallery, Charlotte, North Carolina Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Cidnee Patrick Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, California Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Edith Baker Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, “New River”, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, “Ground Line”, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Gallery Soolip, ”Ripening”, West Hollywood, California Lowe Gallery, “Changes”, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, “New Work”, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Chassie Post Gallery, “Seed Series”, Atlanta, Georgia

Selected Group Exhibitions: 2022 2021

2020

2019

Galeria São Mamede, Lisbon, Portugal Hamptons Fine Art Fair, Bill Lowe Gallery, Southampton, New York Bryant Street Gallery, “Luna”, Palo Alto, California Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Dimmitt Contemporary,”Art on Paper”, Houston, Texas Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Rosenbaum Contemporary, Boca Raton, Florida

2018

2017

2016 2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Dimmitt Contemporary, Houston, Texas Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, California Art Wynwood, Rosenbaum Contemporary, Miami, Florida Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana artMRKT, Bryant St Gallery, San Francisco, California Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Haen Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina Hickory Museum of Art, “Waking Up With Van Gogh”, Hickory, North Carolina Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Moot Gallery, “Year of the Rabbit”, Hong Kong Haen Gallery, Asheville, North Carolina Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Asheville Art Museum, “Looking Back”, Asheville, North Carolina Verge Art Fair, Brenda Taylor Gallery- New York, Miami, Florida Craighead-Green Gallery, “Stimulate”,Dallas, Texas Bill Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Rosenbaum Contemporary, Boca Raton, Florida Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Rosenbaum Contemporary, Boca Raton, Florida Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Craighead-Green Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, “In Search of Source”, Santa Monica, California Art Miami, Miami, Florida Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Lowe Gallery, “15th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997 1996 1995 1993

Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, California Cidnee Patrick Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, Santa Monica, California Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana Cidnee Patrick Gallery, Dallas, Texas Lowe Gallery, “14th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, gallery artists, Santa Monica, California Huntsville Museum of Art, “Survey of Art in the Southeast”, Huntsville, Alabama Lowe Gallery, “13th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia Warren Wilson College, Faculty exhibition, Asheville, North Carolina Lowe Gallery, “12th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia University of North Carolina Gallery, Faculty exhibition, Asheville, North Carolina Lowe Gallery, “11th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta College of Art Gallery, “Alumni exhibition”, Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, Donald Sultan, Attila Richard Lukacs, Markus Lupertz, Steven Seinberg, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, “10th Anniversary exhibition”, Atlanta, Georgia Olga Dollar Gallery, “Abstraction Redefined”, San Francisco, California Gallery Soolip, “Retrospective”, West Hollywood, California Olga Dollar Gallery, “Context”, San Francisco, California Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta College of Art Gallery, “Alumni exhibition”, Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Allene LaPides Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Lowe Gallery, “Something for Everyone”, Atlanta, Georgia Chassie Post Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Woodruff Arts Center, Atlanta, Georgia

STEVEN SEINBERG BILL LOWE GALLERY | Atlanta . USA GALERIA SÃO MAMEDE | Lisbon . Portugal

BILL LOWE GALLERY AT L A N TA . G E O R G I A