James Siena at Cristinerose - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

James Siena showed 15 medium-sized enamel paintings upon aluminum, produced over the past four years. His abstract compositions are tightly organized and feature the repetition of a module pattern or line that fills the entire rectangular field. The thin lines of clear densely applied color, laid side through side without any transition or blending, bring into view a cold brilliance. These unpainterly, allover pictures have their origin in drawing--almost certainly upon graph paper--and, to a considerable expanse their effect results from his modulation of line. Siena's intimately scaled art explores age-old ideas having to do with flatness versus illusionism, as well as repetition, order and ornament.

In Battery (1997) the elemental module is a small golden oval, surrounded by bands of black, white and r Each joins to its neighbor by means of thin r lines twig by a dark blue turf The gradual and then unusual diminishment of the size of the confined apartments from the edges of the composition inward creates an singularly sexual image of infinite space. Rictus (1997) displays a quivering, centralized Greek cros Distorted concentric ellipses of r white, beige and azure make up the arms. fat red interlacing bands fill the space between the arms with a diagonal pattern that spreads into the corners of the composition, where warped ellipses reappear. The resulting close tightlyed configuration, reminiscent of early medieval Irish work illumination in its cross imagery and horror vacui, pulsates with a life of its hold This artist's best works retain an irregular, emphatically handmade and arbitrary quality, despite his striving for rigorous organization.

Siena's configurations allude to a plethora of subdues through purely abstract means. Taste the Houses (1997) summons frightening ideas having to do with seriality and uniformity (cloning), mesmerizingly intricate computer circuits and densely populated areas seen from a bird's-eye view. R Scream (1995) with its rippling issue develops an idea enunciated in Edvard Munch's greatest in quantity famous painting, and Upside Down Devil (Second Version), 1997 is like a blinding detonation.

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