Copyright © 2025,by Sponder Gallery
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U S copyright law info@spondergallery.com spondergallery.com
This exhibition, Drips, Stains & Pours, assembles a distinguished group of postwar painters whose works extend the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism into a language of material immediacy, chromatic saturation, and gestural complexity Featuring Natvar Bhavsar, Stanley Boxer, Dan Christensen, Donald Martiny, and Kikuo Saito, the exhibition underscores the enduring relevance of painterly abstraction while situating these artists within the broader context of second-generation Abstract Expressionism
Emerging in the aftermath of World War II, Abstract Expressionism catalyzed a seismic shift in the trajectory of modern art Initially anchored by figures such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Helen Frankenthaler, the movement rejected figuration and narrative in favor of a deeper engagement with gesture, process, and psychological excavation The studio became a site of psychic release, where improvisation supplanted convention and the artist’s body enacted an existential performance on the canvas
The artists presented here are heirs to that radical inheritance Working primarily from the 1960s onward, they adapted and reinterpreted the aesthetic strategies of their predecessors, pushing the possibilities of abstraction into new optical and spatial territories Their works are not simply expressions of the subconscious, as the first generation often claimed, but articulations of control and chaos, of bodily trace and chromatic architecture.
Donald Martiny’s sculptural brushstrokes seen in works akin to the sweeping eggplant-toned gesture pictured collapse the binary between painting and objecthood. These massive, singular strokes exist as records of motion, thick with medium and suspended in time They do not represent brushwork; they are brushwork made autonomous, free from canvas constraints.
Natvar Bhavsar’s expansive, atmospheric fields, meanwhile, evoke a cosmological sublime through a rigorous process of dry pigment application His layering of saturated tones echoes color field painters, but with a granular tactility that amplifies both depth and materiality Similarly, Stanley Boxer’s richly encrusted surfaces engage the canvas as terrain, where color becomes sediment and texture accrues in geologic strata
Dan Christensen and Kikuo Saito contribute a more lyrical dynamism Christensen’s sprayed loops and ribbons articulate space through rhythmic gesture, invoking both urban energy and calligraphic grace Saito, by contrast, blends painterly exuberance with a choreographic sensibility, informed by his background in theater and stage design His luminous stains and floating forms suggest movement as both performance and residue
Their canvases are not static compositions but durational events, records of physical engagement, intuition, and material encounter The exhibition title, Drips, Stains & Pours, references the elemental methods through which paint is liberated from the brush, from intention and even from form itself.
Situated within the refined architectural setting of The Boca Raton’s Yacht Club, these works create a dialogue between the gestural and the serene, between spontaneity and control The exhibition reaffirms the vitality of postwar abstraction while inviting viewers to consider the continued relevance of material investigation, embodied process, and chromatic intensity in contemporary painting
1926-2000
Stanley Boxer was an American artist best known for thickly painted abstract works of art He was also an accomplished sculptor and print maker. Trained post-World War II at the famed Arts Students League, Boxer, like many of his generation moved toward abstract non-objective painting At one point he caught the eye of renowned 20th century art critic Clement Greenberg, and was lumped in with the Color Field painters whom Greenberg championed.
In 1953 Stanley Boxer had his first solo exhibition of paintings in New York City, and showed regularly thereafter until his death. His work is included in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, the Boston Museum of Fine Art and as well at the Tate Gallery in London Boxer created more than 7,000 drawings, paintings, and sculptures during his career.
Oil & mixed media on canvas, 70 x 50 in.
1988 Oil and mixed media on canvas, 25 x 80 in
Boxer (Estate)
1980 Mixed media on canvas, 17 x 64 in.
b. 1953
Donald Martiny creates large-scale paintings that suggest gestural marks of paint directly applied to the wall, paying tribute to the energetic motion of action painting. In 2014, Martiny had a solo show at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art He received a commission the following year to create two paintings for One World Trade Center, which are permanently installed in the tower’s ground floor lobby where they appear to shift in color depending on the day’s light
An alumnus of the School of Visual Arts, the Art Students League of New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Martiny began developing his signature style in the late 1990s. His paintings are collected by institutions like the Crocker Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, and the Lamborghini Museum Mudetec in Bologna, Italy.
U N T I T L E D
2017 polymer and pigment on paper, 30.5 x 22.75 in. paper, 38 x 30 in. frame, eggplant
U N T I T L E D
2013 polymer and pigment on paper, 26 x 20 in. paper, 33 x 26.5 in. frame, blue
U N T I T L E D
2017 polymer and pigment on paper, 22.75 x 30.5 in., white
2017 polymer and pigment on paper, 22.75 x 30.5 in., pink
U N T I T L E D
2017 polymer and pigment on paper, 22.75 x 30.5 in. paper, 30 x 38 in. frame, red
1934-2008
Claiming that colors are his medium, influential Color Field painter Natvar Bhavsar has been exploring the sensual, emotional, and intellectual resonance of color since the early 1960's. His paintings draw influences from his childhood in India, surrounded by vivid textiles, practicing Rangoli, and witnessing the Holi Festival, and adulthood in New York in the 1960's and ’70's
To make his paintings, which range from intimate to grand, Bhavsar sifts powdered pigments onto canvas, allowing air currents and his own breath and body movements to determine where they fall, creating smoky, layered compositions. “I think I have tried to convey how to free oneself,” he describes. “Using color as a force to reach towards the beauty and generosity of the material that allows you unlimited expression.”
1979 Acrylic on canvas, 38.25 x 24 inches
1942-2007
A leading abstract painter in his lifetime, Dan Christensen drew from a range of Modernist sources to produce colorful, luminous compositions that featured giant dots, whirling loops, and grids. Originally trained in classical, figurative painting, Christensen later sought to transcend stylistic restrictions, experimenting throughout his career with an array of tools to apply paint, including rollers, squeegees, brooms, and weed-sprayers.
Over the course of his career, Christensen garnered a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and a PollockKrasner Foundation Grant. Shortly before his death on January 20, 2007 in East Hampton, NY, a retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Spanierman Gallery in New York. His works are in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, the Princeton University Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Wichita Art Museum, among others.
U N T I T L E D # 4 8 6
1990 Acrylic on canvas, 59 x 59 in.
R H Y M E R # 4 R E D 2003 Acrylic on canvas, 58 x 40 in.
U N T I T L E D 2 9 6 L 7
1996 Acrylic on canvas, 59 1/2 x 54 inches
A U T U M N P A R K I
1939-2016
Kikuo Saito ( ⻫藤規矩夫 , Saitō Kikuo, 1939–2016) was a Japanese-born American abstract painter with ties to the Color Field movement and Lyrical Abstraction. A former assistant to Helen Frankenthaler, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons Saito's work infuses richly saturated colorscapes with delicately drawn lines
Saito was the creator of sui generis theatre and dance events, collaborating with innovative directors and choreographers Robert Wilson, Peter Brook, Jerome Robbins, and dancer and choreographer Eva Maier, to whom he was married for several decades His productions combined wordless drama in the poetic frameworks of light, costumes, music, and dance, most of which he devised and directed himself.
C R I M S O N
1977 Oil on Canvas, 61 x 86 in.
Jan 10, 2024 - July 1, 2025
