Psychonautic Traces at Davidson Gallery Thru July 30 2022

Davidson Gallery is pleased to present Psychonautic Traces, a solo exhibition of new work by Palma Blank. The exhibition features Blank’s hard-edge, optical paintings from various series within her practice. Like virtually all of Blank’s work, they draw influence from the minimalist concepts and color theories of 1960s modernism, along with the visual strategies and phenomenological ideas associated with Impressionism. The works intimate recognizable forms but even as shapes begin to appear, they morph and shift. The feeling of cut-out space and void belies the additive nature of the paintings; Blank’s process includes repetitive networks and undulating matrices of smaller shapes to create vibrating layers that create a state of flux.

 It is that ever-changing status that draws the viewer into the paintings while also mining their own subconscious - the title of the show, Psychonautic Traces, imagines a journey through one's own mind, or else finding remnant evidence of some such odyssey in the real world. Blank draws inspiration from visual moments in everyday life: “The way light radiates through a  series of graffitied fences. The layered patterning of leaves when looking up from under a tree. Following the fluorescent orange mesh of a construction site as it wraps the skeleton of a new building. Contemplating the vastness of the universe while gazing into a clear night sky.” That sublime awareness of the connectivity of all things helps dictate the intense color relationships in Blank’s work, as well as the ability to juxtapose depth and flatness, illusion and objecthood, minimalism and maximalism, the handmade and the machined; the paintings emerge as charged futuristic spaces for experience and reflection.

Palma Blank (b. 1979  Norwalk, CT)  received an MFA from Yale University, New Haven, CT, and a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. Her work has been included in exhibitions throughout New York including at The Hole, a solo show at Horton Gallery, and most recently Ninth Street Women: 70 Years of Women in Abstraction, at Hunter Dunbar Projects. Her work has been acquired by the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, NY Presbyterian Hospital, as well as many other international collections. She is on the board of directors at Black Ball Projects, a non-profit arts organization supporting underexposed contemporary artists in New York City. Blank lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. This is her first show with Davidson Gallery.

Davidson Gallery

521 W 26th St.

New York, NY 10001
SUMMER HOURS MONDAY-FRIDAY 11 AM - 6 PM

http://www.davidsongallery.com/

PRE (AGAIN) A VIRTUAL VIEWING ROOM →

“As we round the corner to the 2020 election we thought it might be a good time to reflect on our 2017 exhibition ‘Pre’. I remember thinking about how important the making of art was and would continue to be – as a form of protest as well as personal mental salvation. Politicians and leaders come and go, we rarely remember their names, but we do remember the art and artists of the time.

Today, almost four years after the election, we're still reeling from our country's decision to vote for Donald Trump, but back then we had no idea what would be in store for us in the upcoming years. The basic idea I had for ‘Pre’ was to select works by artists that were political as well as apolitical, the only rule being that the work had been made before election day. What would that look like? How would the works dance between themselves and create their own narrative together?

In this, our first Viewing Room, we re-present ‘Pre,’ as we are again Pre-election. 2020 has been quite a year for all of us and no less so for the artists included in ‘Pre’. We are proud to show you some of their current works, links, and images from shows they have been involved with in the intervening years as well as to get inside some of their processes for making work. Luckily for us, most artwork does not spoil like food, but continues to exist and take on different contexts and meanings via its relationships to each other and, most vitally, to time.”

-Ana Wolovick (Black Ball Projects Co-founder)

Ana Wolovick, Director at Black Ball Projects, interviewed me a few months ago and put together this online viewing gallery spotlighting my studio practice and latest body for work, which was made during the quarantine.

VISIT THE VIRTUAL VIEWING ROOM

CUBED @THE HOLE NYC

Andreas Angelidakis
Ara Peterson
Clinton King
Irina Ojovan
Jean Nagai
Jonny Niesche
Kristine Moran
Lilah Rose
Luke Diiorio
Luke Murphy
Palma Blank
Rebecca Ward
Robert Moreland
Thomas Trum

September 10th – October 11th, 2020

The Hole is proud to present a group show of idiosyncratic geometric abstraction entitled “Cubed”. Building on our 2016 show “Two on Two” with Johnny Abrahams, Matt Mignanelli, Palma Blank and Russell Tyler, this exhibition was meant to be two on two on two, or 2 x 2 x 2, two cubed and eight artists. Unfortunately it has been so long since we have gotten to do a group show of this nature that there were 14 artists crucial to the exhibition. I suppose we should have added two more and changed the name to “Tesseract”.

Palma Blank x Kayrock Fresh Print

Signed and numbered edition of 150 by Palma Blank

5 color screenprint on French 100lb cover, 2018

Made in Brooklyn, NY. Standard 18"x24" size for easy and affordable framing or let us frame it in our hand made Vermont maple museum frame featuring walnut splines, archival UV blocking glazing and acid free mounting.

Superposed was inspired by a current series of paintings and digital works where repeat patterns were formed and layered in "an experimental fashion" to create complex color and spatial experiences. Intense opticality causes the work to exist in a state of flux, continually shifting in reaction to its environment and its audience.

TWO ON TWO @ THE HOLE NYC

The Hole is proud to announce two two-person exhibitions, “Two on Two,” opening this Tuesday, March 1st. In the main space Johnny Abrahams and Matt Mignanelli meet, while the big back Gallery 3 teams together Russell Tyler and Palma Blank.These four artists make abstract works that look at line and texture through geometric or optical abstraction in a fresh, digital-era way. Each of the four artists has an unmistakeable personality, however, that comes through in both their approach and way of looking. From Russell Tyler pitching paint balls of oil at his pieces to Palma’s taped-off winnowing of thick acrylic, the sphere of interest is shared but the details distinctive.Johnny Abrahams and Matt Mignanelli both make mechanical looking canvasses with an exaggeratedly handmade paint job to explore process oriented painting. Johnny often combines super-precise painted lines with not-so-precise limning in the same piece. In his new body of work created for this show, phase shifts in line are coupled with shifts in canvas shape to accommodate the offsets. Some shaped works look like origami instructions, while others relate to the hard mechanics of early digital imaging software with the Sol LeWitt-like appearance of an executed formula.Matt incorporates speckles and slops into his gloss enamel and acrylic paintings that are done by hand though they look super silkscreened and precise. The monochromatic squares with diagonal transections proliferate across his works with gloss enamel, in narrow canvasses that look like Xanax to larger works that evoke early Super Mario scenery or architectural diagrams. Their lustrous gridding creates not just illusory depth but something more phenomenological.Palma Blank and Russell Tyler use texture and directionality to colorfully optic ends. While Palma layers acrylic lines into thickly grooved surfaces, Tyler scrapes, slaps and smears oil paint into surprisingly controlled-looking ab ex rectangles. Both painters are creating low relief wall objects where texture plays a key part in their optic efforts.Palma explores seeing with overlapping color lines that create motion on your retina and new chromatic deceptions. Where warm and cool lines slice thin triangles of slanted stripe, the colors morph and vibrate. Their precision and glow evoke vector graphics and video games or perhaps even logos and sportswear. Their sensation might be described as “accelerating.”

Russell seems to paint abstraction about abstraction and painting. His oil paintings contain controlled moments of action and gesture, lumps where a giant dollop of paint is plopped on, smears where fingers swipe in more pigment, even mini explosions of color where a laden brush slaps hard against the surface. Around the little universes of paint marks with personality are crisp borders and perfectly abutting textured backgrounds. The palette is strongly skewed towards salmon and turquoise and all variants therein contained; and for all the mayhem, the restricted palette and confining borders really pull together this painting party.

For more information about the artists and to preview works in exhibition please email raymond@theholenyc.com

Johnny Abrahams

Matt Mignanelli

Palma Blank

Russell Tyler

PAINTINGS IN TREES

An exhibition of paintings and sculptures in and for The People's Garden.

Opening Reception May 30th, 3-7pm
May 30th - June 28th, 2015

Curated by: Ben La Rocco, Linnea Paskow, Ben Pritchard

Paintings in Trees is an exhibition of painting and sculpture meant to bring Bushwick’s community into The People’s Garden and to bring attention to this jewel of a garden located in Bushwick right on Broadway. Artwork will be hung and displayed in trees, on the exterior walls of adjoining buildings, on the grass and in other nooks and crannies around the garden. The work will be exposed to the elements for the duration of the exhibition. Proceeds from the sale of food and beverages at the reception will go directly to the garden. In the event of sales, participating artists are invited to donate a percentage of their choosing to the garden.
 

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