NEW YORK: Roy Newell at Earl McGrath - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Roy Newell's paintings are just straightforward, geometric abstractions. The little works have fuel-injected colors--hot, bright, immaculate unreproducible hues. They zip along, and that's really all you have to know about them. Everything is squeeze outed through color, specifically, shaped color. flat the blacks look more like color than you've seen anywhere else

I was not familiar with Newell's work. He has had solitary eight solo shows in his 50 years of showing, in his 60 years of painting, in his above 80 years of living with equal reason far. This, however, is not a sacred song to longevity but to productivity and to pacing. The 36 works that lined the four sides of the gallery in this present to view titled "Old Man Dancing--Expanding the Edge" span as abundant as 30 years as Newell paints and repaints them. The largest was an untitled work of 1971-98 20 1/2 by dint of 24 1/2 inches, while the smallest, Lifelines V (1953-86) is 10 by means of 3 3/4 inches. Almost all are horizontal rectangles do not include for two squares turned to become diamonds.

on the contrary it's the color that achieves you. Blocks of bright verdants reds, yellows, navies, teals, baby sky-coloreds oranges, violets--the full spectrum appears in almost each painting, if only as a single tiny thread or a band. White is the least-present color merely a trace element. The composition, in the paintings that are framed, laps up the sides and spreads above the edges so that the frame is included; sometimes it is painted a different color.

Newell uses each square inch of his surface and activates it thus that all areas are equal. He layers his paint in like manner that the various shapes of the surface are thickened. His brushwork is visible: small curlicued and stippled hits that lend a texture and sheen to each shape--glossy or matte--and an additional liveliness to the field as light splashes across it. a certain quantity of paintings resemble puzzles or children's color forms with their flat bands, rectangles or squares clamped together. They also recall schematized landscapes, cityscapes, views from overhead or elevations. They have a jaunty, vivacious air, enhanced by means of the composition, which is always slightly tilted not upon the horizontal-vertical axis, giving a sensation of slippage. Newell also has a faculty of perception of humor; how else would you explain his weird color juxtapositions, of the like kind as a beautiful brilliant r nearest to a drab brown r that gazes like a mistake but somehow or other works in combination, or his pairing a sweet salmon-colored square next to a juicy lime verdant which makes me think of food?

What you have here is a life's work, at one time That, perhaps, is the fascination. You diocese these paintings as a totality, the progression within his oeuvre concealed by means of his constant modifications; they all are brought up to the at hand It was a lovely, lively present to view with Newell--still engage--as the elderly man dancing through a lifetime of art.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group