Nicholas Krushenick at Mitchell Algus - New York, New York - Reviews of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Nicholas Krushenick's hard-edge paintings of the late '50 were prescient of detonation art. Predating Lichtenstein's "brushstroke" paintings, Krushenick's brash and cartoonish abstractions parodied Ab-Ex gesturalism, and during the '60 he was considered individual of the foremost practitioners of what more [i]or[/i] less critics called "abstract Pop." Exhibited around the world, the artist's work strike one as beinged destined for a secure place in the art-history volumes However, over the years, as other art moves took center stage and report art came to be regarded by means of most people as a primarily figurative genre Krushenick's approach appear to beed irrelevant to some. He continued to make known his distinctive style throughout the '70 and '80 on the other hand exhibited less frequently, and in novel years he has focused upon teaching. He is still painting, however.

alone eight canvases were on display, on the contrary the show constituted a fine crash-course in the artist's work. Krushenick's paintings direct the eyeed astonishingly fresh. The work's heroic saturated colors and jazzy geometry relate to that of a number of younger artists -- Peter Halley, Michael Scott and Robert Reitzfeld immediately tend hitherward to mind.

The large paintings, Cros above (1972) and Long Beach (1973) each around 6 by means of 5 feet, were the earliest upon view. Quintessential Krushenicks, these canvases feature the dynamic arrangements of diagonal lines and thrusting geometric shapes in wild colors for which the artist is best known. In Crossover dozens of alternating hot-pink and orange stripes radiate from the upper left and lower right corners toward the center of a blinding golden field. In Long Beach, files of long, pointed purple and white bands span the canvas diagonally from opposite corners; they have the appearance to pierce the glowing orange background.

The novel works are smaller -- the artist lately has been in poor health and finds large canvases difficult to manage. on the other hand they are as powerful as before, and greatest in quantity of them hint at landscape. In Mango Madness (1993) individual of the most striking works, the artist engages a crosshatch technique to overspread the entire surface with a webbing of black lines. He recommends a stark landscape by dividing the canvas horizontally -- the background is fulvous at the top and white at the bottom. Space Map / features a searing vermilion field framed in a narrow border of tightly packed gold-colored and black lines. As the title advises it could be seen as a skyscape. A dozen or thus narrow white rectangular slivers appear to flicker in the blood-r heavens like stars in a constellation.

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