Restraint and Limitation | May 23- June 26, 2021
May 23 – June 26, 2021
Curator: Matthew Ballou
Closing Reception: Saturday, June 26, 2 - 5pm
Panel Discussion: Saturday, June 12, 2 - 3 pm
Exhibiting Artists:
Sarah Arriagada, Anna Buckner, Sharon Butler, Joel T. Dugan, Magalie Guérin, Michael Hopkins, Erin King, Elizabeth Powell, Elise Rugolo, Sumire Skye Taniai, Simon Tatum, Jennifer Ann Wiggs.
Riverside Arts Center (RAC) presents “Restraint and Limitation.” This group exhibition curated by Matthew Ballou features excellent contemporary abstraction from artists operating through a variety of perspectives.
Matthew Ballou, a Full Teaching Professor in the School of Visual Studies at The University of Missouri, curated this exhibition in order to explore trends in contemporary abstract art-making via the work of three accomplished women and a constellation of artists investigating similar concerns. The exhibition focuses on the work of Anna Buckner (Indiana), Sharon Butler (Connecticut), and Magalie Guérin (Illinois/Texas). Using these three artists as a starting point, the show also includes a number of artists with broad interconnections, including German-American painter Sarah Arriagada and Caymanian artist Simon Tatum.
Mr. Ballou writes:
Contemporary abstraction is a huge, multifaceted project. From artists such as Katharina Grosse, Julie Mehretu, or El Anatsui to Cordy Ryman, Odili Donald Odita, or Amy Sillman, the range of potential and diversity of referent available to artists is wide and rich.
Today, there are no firm boundaries or distinct definitions providing a unified perspective on the practice of abstract painting. That contemporary abstraction utilizes the history, physical interactions, and conceptual structure of painting is clear. Yet to suggest that it is limited to the realm of painting is a dramatic misunderstanding.
Anna Buckner | Dutch Still Life. Pieced fabric scraps on stretcher. 12x12 inches. 2015
The old discourse that endlessly returns to the interplay between abstraction and representation has lost the potency to report on what is actually happening in much of recent abstraction. With this exhibition, I hope to present a sliver-like view into the modes of abstraction that intersect with painting as a form and which, in unique ways, demonstrate the limitations of depiction and representation to clarify the kinds of experiences that abstraction affords us. I also seek to show how smaller works may defy the conceit that abstraction is most powerful in its more monumental expressions.
Magalie Guérin | Untitled (res 1.5). Oil on canvas on panel. 20x26 inches. 2019
The three primary artists I present here are women from different stages of their careers: Anna Buckner, Sharon Butler, and Magalie Guérin. They show commitment to the aesthetics and procedures inherent in painting practice today, yet bring diverse pressures to the discipline. Around them I have gathered artists who supplement their visions and dovetail into adjacent realms of action. Influences – ranging from post-paint materiality to provisionality to traditional serial methodology – form an invigorating view into a restrained yet evocative corner of artmaking.
Sharon Butler | Good Morning Drawing. Transparency from digital, 6x6 inches. 2016-2019
Featured Artists:
Anna Buckner is based in Lansing, MI. Her paintings and textile pieces have been exhibited nationally at venues including Bad Water (Knoxville, TN), the Museum of Human Achievement (Austin,TX), Kathryn Markel Fine Arts (New York, NY), and the Painting Center (New York, NY). She was recently featured in New American Paintings Midwest, and New York Magazine’s “How to be an Artist,” by Jerry Saltz.
Sharon Butler is based in New York, NY. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited internationally at venues such as Theodore:Art, Bushwick (Brooklyn, NY), SEASON (Seattle, WA), John Davis Gallery (Hudson, NY), and Galerie Jean Fournier (Paris). She is the founder, editor and writer of Two Coats of Paint, an art blog about painting and art criticism sponsored by institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, New York Studio School, and the School of Visual Arts.
Magalie Guérin is based in Chicago, IL. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited internationally at venues ranging from Amanda Wilkinson gallery (London), Schwarz Contemporary (Berlin), Brand New Gallery (Milan), Corbett vs Dempsey (Chicago), and the DePaul Art Museum (Chicago). She has been recognized by such awards as the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and the Pace Award for a mid-career painter at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Elizabeth Powell | Untitled (2021 #3) Gouache on paper, 6x4 inches. 2021
Elise Rugolo | Wiggle Room. Encaustic on panel, 12x12 inches, 2011
Dugallou Collaboration | PUBLVI - mixed media on wood panel. 8x8 inches. 2017-2020