ATR LET ME RIDE from Mark Choiniere on Vimeo.

Charline von Heyl at Kunsthalle Nürnberg

Press Release: A painter known for her vibrant, insistent, enigmatic paintings and works on paper, Charline von Heyl demonstrates that abstraction is intensely relevant in contemporary art. Von Heyl’s paintings are not abstractions of real things in the world; rather, her work begins and ends with purely abstract forms. With their intentional confusion of foreground and background, their dynamic energy and their contradictions and reversals, these paintings require (and desire) careful looking. Nonetheless they refuse to yield to the impulse to name, identify, and define. Powerfully imbued with emotion, von Heyl has called her work “melodramatic abstraction.” In addition to her large paintings, the exhibition will present von Heyl’s collage-based works on paper. Largely black and white, they combine woodcut, silkscreen, and lithography, and are defined by a wild overflow of energy. They are sometimes more conventionally legible than the paintings, their source images—whether Magritte drawings, found photographs, or comic books—less transformed. They reveal an artist deeply engaged in altering and manipulating forms until they become something utterly new. The unusually wide heterogeneity of her work has been seen by some as a political gesture aimed at an art world that values and rewards signature products, but it may just as well be the result of an artistic sensibility that values questions over answers. As von Heyl says, “It is about the feeling that a painting, or any work of art, can give—when you can’t stop looking because there is something that you want to find out, that you want to understand…. Good paintings have this tantalizing quality. And once you turn around, you absolutely cannot recapture them. They leave a hole in the mind, a longing.”

Studio Update

This is an old canvas of my roommate's that I'm in the process of covering to give it a new life.

He already had a nice layer of texture on it, so rather than scrape it off, I left it on and am trying to work on a painting where outside influences are apparent, and acting on the new painting. I started off liking where this one going, but now it's frustrating me. I had a feeling my first couple of paintings would have this affect on me since I'm getting back into my studio practice after not painting for the whole summer. The texture on the ground, and the semi-transparent paint is interesting me, but the composition is stale and lack-luster.

Detail of the paint

This guy's giving me some hope, I'm happy with how it's taking shape. Creating shallow, awkward spaces is something that interests me in painting, and I think this one has what it takes. There's only two real layers of paint on it so far, but it's already starting to act in a way that I like. I want to explore the blocking/veiling of spaces, but while still showing each layer of paint. The mixture of gestural and geometric forms creates exciting relationships. 

When I'm trying to create space in my paintings, I try to not be illusionistic about it, but very upfront. The viewer is aware of what's happening in most cases, but I try to find different and interesting ways to describe the different spaces within a painting.

New Studio

Got my studio all set up and have begun working, starting two new paintings and painting over an old canvas of my roomate's.

Old Canvas

Older / Beginning Paintings

Early Morning Conversations

This past Monday I met with Aimee Anemelu, whose work I had never seen before, and we had a conversation about our work. This is what Aimee had to say about her work

N:  Were you primarily concerned with any one thing when making these sculptures? I mean I guess, what were you thinking about during these?

A: I like to think that I don't really plan,which I think my teacher thinks... No he likes it... But I think he would like it if I planned and sketched more but I don't.

N: So they're a lot more intuitive?

A: Yeah they really are. As I go things come up.

N: I can relate to that because I paint in the same way. Your sculptures all tend to be larger in size and have 

a lot of weight to them.

A: Yeah I use a lot of plaster, this one couldn't be moved, it took four people to move it. The last time it was moved it broke. These cinder blocks help keep it together as a support. During critique it was asked if they were necessary or not, well yeah, it's necessary to help it stand, although it wasn't part of the piece, but because it's so gritty like you said... it's not so nice..

N: It's not a clean support at all.

A: Which is why I thought it wasn't an issue.

N: Well all three of them all look heavy as hell, even this one even though it appears to be leaves, there's such an extreme bend and tension where it's being hung.

N: Are these raisins?

A: Yeah and they started to mold at the gallery, it was set up in the gallery on a table, kind of like this one, just a used old table. It looks similar to a turkey and my teacher told me I should display it as one; on a nice table with plates and silverware. But I'm not sure that was an idea I was comfortable with as it gave too much to the viewer. It would limit what someone could think about the piece.

N: Right, if it had been presented in that way that's all it would have been seen as.

A: Yeah it felt corny, but everyone has their tastes'.

N: Presentation's a big part of it

A: Exactly he felt like it was enough, which it kind of wasn't, it didn't take up the whole table and in a way it looked like something was missing because the same amount of attention was being given to the table as the sculpture.

N: Even though you say you work intuitively, I feel like you had to be thinking of something with this one. The other two are these big, natural forms but this one clearly resembles a turkey dinner with the characteristics of a female person.

A: When I was making that I was watching a lot of natural, at home birthing online. I would try to talk to be about it and they would immediately want to change topics. I don't know if it's even girl talk, people are just uncomfortable talking about it.

N: Maybe by you making this, it's your way of making people deal with it by making it so visual in front of them.

A: That's interesting, making this for me was very intimate as clay is very intimate to work with. Just the way that you have to mold and smooth it, and just thinking that out of those actions someone can be revolted by it is pretty interesting to me. And the thing I like about certain materials is for instance I used a food material but didn't think about how it would act. It started molding around the nipple area, so the idea I cant put something down and allow it to do what it needs to do without me worry about it. Just the way that I didn't know it would mold, but what if I had known? Would I have been able to plan around it or would I have made it to much?

N: The mold is even growing on the clay, and physically tying the two materials together, and it doesn't look bad on this table.