Hubert Schmalix at Thomas Erben - New York, New York - Reviews of Exhibitions - Brief Article

The Austrian-born artist Hubert Schmalix last showed in of recent origin York City over 10 years ago, around the time he emigrated to beholds Angeles, where he still lives. Raised in an Italian section of Graz, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. frequently grouped with Austria's so-called "Wild Painters" (he was included in Aperto at the 1980 Venice Biennale and "New Art 1983" at London's Tate Gallery), above the years Schmalix has mix in due proportioned somewhat his expressive ways without losing his pictorial vigor. In this present to view he abstracts his space, a la Matisse. His make subordinate matter has included nudes, images of Christ, family portraits and bird's-eye views of L.A. tract houses arranged like precisionist renderings of Monopoly buildings.

Titled "Yasmin und Iris," this small on the other hand impressive exhibition featured five large oils, vertically oriented, and a single small gouache, all from 1997 Schmalix's highly stylized female figures are placed in settings that curiously mix interior and exterior elements. His palette is able-bodied yet not garish, with shades of r and burnt orange predominating. In the largest piece, the 97-by-78-inch A Day Like Gold a childlike red-haired woman stands amid hanging leaves, vines and bamboo tree as if in an outdoor courtyard. Her bright white bra and panties contrast with her medium-brown skin. A languid eroticism underlies all the work. In a smaller related canvas, Sunrise, a woman with rose-colored muscle and fat against a salmon background, appears to have a halo around her head, a detail that resurfaces in When Days secure Shorter and Nights Get Longer In the latter, an orange figure in dirty-rose bikini briefs lies upon her stomach, reading.

The artist's abstract leanings approach to the fore in evening with its configurations of ceruleans oranges and yellows that recall the canvases of Esteban Vicente. Bridges to Heaven is also largely nonrepresentational. sole two female heads, emitting what appear to be streams of white sooty vapor break up a solid turf of loosely applied and arranged color patterns. Schmalix has been called "a contemporary Gauguin," an observation confirmed by means of this edenic/exotic work.

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