REVIEWS
ARTFORUM, May 2006
New York Critic's Picks - LINDA SCHRANK
ROSENBERG + KAUFMAN FINE ART, LTD.
115 Wooster Street
by Nikki Cesare
Linda Schrank's work, with its thickly textured strips
of paint woven over and through each other in densely
elegant lines, has often been related to tapestry.
Her technique, however, is one of subtraction: She
scrapes away coats of paint with a custom tool to form
the patterns on her canvases. The bands open up to reveal
a visceral depth in this show of new paintings and works on
paper. Schrank has used a wider scraper, and the resultant lines
are sharper and freer˜interlaced with swirls and swoops of bloodred,
deep purple, and the occasional orange, blue, or yellow; and featuring
an entirely new element, black or red dots in random yet linear patterns.
The most complex work on display here, Holding Opposites Together, 2006,
is a synthesis of the other paintings: Yellow strips give way to red, blue, and
white eddies beneath an irregular array of perfect black dots. The whole generates
the sensation, as one steps away from the canvas, that the image exists simultaneously
on several perspectival planes. In addition, Schrank has included one archival pigment
print, Space Catcher, 2006, that, unlike the other pieces, which recall Klee or Cézanne,
manages to suggest Mondrian's crisp organization despite its smudged lines and color.
While Schrank's surfaces remain highly intricate, it is what lies beneath that most rewards attention.
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