GEORGE AT ANITA'S
George Negroponte comes to
making art with a pure love of painting. His aim has never been to turn over
the apple cart, or in Al Held’s words, reinvent the wheel. As such, he has been
compelled to paint his way through various modes and approaches, learning and searching
for authenticity and resonance. A few years back GN spent five years in Sweden
with his family where he painted in isolation, save the input of his wife Virva
Hinnemo, also a wonderful painter. He painted and looked after his family’s
needs. After an adult lifetime in close proximity to, or in fact at the very
center of the NY art world, this was radical, and a trial of epic proportion.
At GN’s last show at Jason
McCoy before leaving on his Swedish adventure, he had already started to
dismantle his gestural paintings by tearing up works on paper and reassembling
them. The work found a new supercharged, stripped down energy. They were fresh
and open and seemed like a beautiful beginning for what would come; Franz Kline
and romantic abstract expressionist paint handling still remained in the mix.
Negroponte showed work on two
occasions at Kouros Gallery. This was work he made in Sweden. His isolation created
a kind of opening for him and a sink or swim situation ensued. Only what was
essential now could be allowed into his mix, and the last affiliations with
anything or anyone else finally vanished. He was working at the level of bone
on bone. This work was quite
surprising, even shocking. It gave me a chill. It looked cool but felt hot. It
was stark, and bare. It used decorative materials, i.e. wallpaper but was
tough, evasive, intriguing and beautiful.
Underneath the immaculate surfaces was a romantic even desperate attempt
to invent a way to express himself and I believe to connect to something
larger. He had found himself in a difficult situation from which he would
eventually emerge, but not with out making work that was totally unique and
very expressive.
In his show last year at Ille
Arts in Amagansett, and now living on Long Island, Negroponte’s work took
another interesting turn. In this beautiful, sensual show, he paired small
scraps of wooden board, usually in the range of 5x3’’x1’’painted in a manner
that suggested a force other than the painter’s hand, and definitely not a hand
with a painters brush. They were immediately likeable uplifting and
luminous. The paint was hi-keyed
in tone and soft in hue; hard and shiny because he used housepainters enamel
paint. In other words they felt natural, airy, easy and relaxed. They were
Asian, Zen in that way of seeming effortless and gestural- an offering of the
natural world. The couplings seemed completely intuitive based on the color and
textural harmonies set up in pairings. They were hung a-symmetrically and
casually on the wall and the work exuded a beautiful soft light while
maintaining a wonderful, charming, profound, and poetic presence. As with all
of GN’s work it spoke clearly in the language of painting and in this case of quiet,
sensual pleasure.
In his current show titled “Gravel
Road” at Anita Rogers’ beautiful new space in Soho Negroponte uses shaped bits
and pieces of cardboard as his support. The work feels softer than the previous
body of work as the material itself is porous and absorbent in nature and the
deep tan color of the cardboard radiates a warm muted soothing light, in a way
similar to Vuillard who often used earth colored grounds to inform and unify
the colors in his composition. Like Vuillard the work tends to be understated,
approachable and intimate. These works are small, all under 20” in height, on
the longer side. The warmth of the
ground is balanced by a predominately cool palette, though occasionally he uses
a hard fire engine red and there are also whites, deep browns, rich greens, and
black as well. As in his last show Negroponte occasionally uses pairings of
smaller pieces in combination. The dialogue is intriguing; it’s like watching
two children in a playground conversing and sizing each other up. But this is
not a defensive matter of the mind as it would be for many adults, but an
natural intuitive attempt to find connection in an infinitely opened 5
dimensional field.
Eric Holzman 2016
George Negroponte: Gravel Road
Anita Rogers Gallery, New York
Through January 7, 2017
