ROBERT JANITZ – UPTOWN CAMPUS
2018-12-24Robert Janitz’ seemingly simple shapes belie a meticulously built contemplation on painting. He generally begins with grounds of gradient color on stretched linen, which are then covered in strokes of semi-transparent paint whipped with flour. The contrasting opacities and transparencies of his marks create fissures of light. Sometimes the paintings feature torqued rectilinear boxes, or they are composed of fields of brushstrokes alone. While it seems possible that the paintings allude to expressionism, the paintings are in fact carefully delineated sets of “procedures” that provoke awareness rather than sensation.
Janitz asks fundamental questions, such as what is a brush, paint, or even a surface; and how, via his hand, these tools and materials can generate a mark. He handles paint bluntly: the broad strokes are direct and unadorned. Janitz carefully considers and builds the different pictorial planes of each painting, contemplating the two-dimensional work and its ability to create three-dimensional illusion— how color and shadow operate with and against each other.
Opposite – Uptown Campus, 2018
Exhibition runs through to January 26th, 2019
Anton Kern Gallery
16 East 55th Street
10022 New York
