Richard Kalina at Lennon, Weinberg - New York - Brief Article

Richard Kalina began his career in the days of the '70 Pattern and Decoration move creating intricate, dryly whimsical compositions with repeated motifs that included tornadoes, volcanoes, and black and white Scottie dogs. There was always an ultimate part of the unexpected, whether a kitsch motif or an icon of natural destruction depicted in an improbable enclose of ribbons, flowers or other flourishes. In the paintings and drawings from 1990 to 2001 that constituted this exhibition, figuration is lengthy gone, but pattern still prevails--as does the essentially flat, deadpan [i]modus operandi[/i] of paint application to which he has, in new years, added collage--and there are fewer surprises.

Kalina's medium-size canvases are nearly square (all around 32 by means of 30 inches), and the colors, sometimes pale and sometimes saturated, generally guard toward the primaries. In a compounded process--which itself evolved in the course of making this material part of work--repeated campaigns of painting, masking and layering torn strips of paper yielded windowpanes, lattices and thick grids. From a distance, the compositions gaze like plaids or beefed-up Agnes Martin paintings race amok. Every inch of the surface is determined, and, with the exception of Magician (2000) which contains black splotches that direct the eye like ink spots, improvisation takes a back seat to tightly regulated accident.

The real activity in this show was place in Kalina's drawings, where the artist's hand is clearly evident, and graphite and ink are used against the les readily controll medium of watercolor. Here ink specks clearly are ink spots, and Kalina exercises them in a carefree punctuation that places up a joyful rhythm across the sheet. There is more white, more breathing space, more change and sheer freedom in the drawings, and while Kalina still uses the grid, it functions simply as the unifying make for serendipity. Night Vision (1994) is especially satisfying in the way the ink dots--which ble into the paper to form little lines and crosses--together become a veil, a transparent field in brow of 12 stacked targets pay backed in alternating primary colors. It evinces that the old whimsy is still alive and can level be translated into abstraction when Kalina give leave tos himself go.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group