Menu

Gavin Spanierman

Spanierman Modern

Spanierman Modern

3D exhibitions

Spanierman Modern

Steven Alexander:CHROMA CONSCIOUSNESS

26 Nov 2020 – 26 Dec 2020

STEVEN ALEXANDER: CHROMA CONSCIOUSNESS ...chroma and consciousness -- mysterious essences that animate reality, and are defined by perception. Steven Alexander is a builder of color-fields in which the viewer is the beneficiary of a quiet space to contemplate the relationship between them and the object before them. Extending the legacy of artists like Mondrian, Morandi, and Rothko who approached painting as an existential investigation, his paintings present uncomplicated color situations that mirror the viewer, and allude to rhythms, tensions and dualities of the body and the psyche. It is color that is the soul of this enterprise and through the richness and range of his palette, he recapitulates the history of art in a schematic, color-coded abstract distillation. These are not analytical paintings based on a pre-conceived system, but intuitively made as one color calls up another and is measured against another, balanced and counterweighted. The Netherlands-based De Stijl movement embraced an abstract, pared-down aesthetic centered in basic visual elements such as geometric forms and primary colors. Partly a reaction against the decorative excesses of Art Deco, the reduced quality of De Stijl art was envisioned by its creators as a universal visual language appropriate to the modern era, a time of a new, spiritualized world order. Led by the painters Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian - its central and celebrated figures - the members envisioned nothing less than the ideal fusion of form and function, thereby making De Stijl in effect the ultimate style. In that vein, Steven’s work is characterized by rigorous attention to formal elements such as color, shape, balance, depth, composition, and scale. Another chief influence on Steven is the much celebrated abstract expressionist artist, Mark Rothko. One can easily see his influences in the brilliant luminosity Steven accomplishes through the application of thin layers of pigment, and juxtaposition of colors. Like Rothko, Steven’s art is distinguished by a rare degree of sustained concentration on pure pictorial properties such as color, surface, proportion, and scale, accompanied by the conviction that those elements could disclose the presence of a high philosophical truth. Steven was Born in 1953 in west Texas. He moved to New York in 1975, completing an MFA in painting at Columbia University, where he studied with Richard Pousette-Dart and Dore Ashton. This is the second solo exhibition of Steven's work at Spanierman Modern, however, his work has been widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States and abroad, including recent solo exhibitions at David Findlay Jr Gallery and The Curator Gallery in New York. A member of the venerable American Abstract Artists group, he has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Belin Foundation, studio residencies at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and Studio Art Centers International in Florence, and numerous public commissions. He maintains a home and studio in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania.

Spanierman Modern

Sam Middleton: Painter of Sound

01 Feb 2021 – 28 Feb 2021

Sam Middleton was one of the leading 20th-century American artists living and working in the Netherlands. A mixed-media artist, whose choice medium was collage, Middleton grew up in Harlem at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. He was immersed in the vibrant cultural and musical scene of the era, becoming acquainted through performances at the Savoy Ballroom with jazz music, which would remain a primary influence on his art throughout his career. Middleton left New York briefly at the height of World War II, joining the Merchant Marines in 1944 when he was just 17 years old, but returned to his native city in the early 1950s. He immersed himself in the growing artistic scene of Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. Middleton initially frequented the Cedar Tavern and formed close friendships with New York School artists including Franz Kline, Jackson Pollack, and Robert Motherwell. His circle of beat writer and artist friends soon gravitated to The Five Spot Café on the Lower East Side where jazz greats Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, and Charlie Parker performed nightly. During this decade, jazz, the music that so inspired him, was changing. Compositions were never played the same way twice. Musicians emphasized improvisation, spontaneity, and creativity of sound. Middleton found inspiration in this new sound and worked to find his own creative voice. He said: “For me, improvisation is a galaxy of color. When I listen to music I feel like a soloist.” In his search to “paint sounds” Middleton was challenged by the changing tempo, the hint of melody, and the speed and dexterity of the music. In 1955, Middleton made his first artistic trip outside of New York. Following the lead of other African American artists such as Charles White and Elizabeth Catlett who were in search of a more open-minded atmosphere than pre-Civil Rights United States, Middleton settled briefly in Mexico City. He had traveled there under a grant from the John Hay Whitney Museum that Franz Kline had helped him secure. In Mexico City, Middleton began working in collage and transforming his artistic viewpoint from social realism to expressionism. He had his first one-man exhibition in Mexico City in 1957. By 1959, Middleton had left the United States permanently. He moved to Spain, then Sweden and Denmark, before finding his permanent home in the Netherlands, settling in Schagen in January, 1962. He began teaching (at Atelier 63, the Royal Academy of Art in Hertogenbosch) and exhibiting regularly, with exhibitions across Scandinavia through the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and, more recently, a retrospective at the Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst in 2003. Middleton’s work is included in American museum collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Fisk University Galleries, the Hampton University Museum, and the Howard University Museum. His work is further included in international museum collections in Australia, Israel, and The Netherlands, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Venlo’s Van Bommel Van Dam Museum. His collages were included in the pivotal 1962 exhibit at the Whitney Museum, Forty Artists Under Forty, and, twenty years later, in the Studio Museum’s exhibition An Ocean Apart: American Artists Abroad. His work continues to be shown in major exhibitions in both the United States and Europe, including the Whitney Museum’s 2015 exhibition America Is Hard to See. Every scholarly publication on African American art after the War mentions Middleton’s elegant and lyrical collages.

latest works

  • Katherine Parker

    Asunder, 2015
    68 x 64 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 20000
  • Katherine Parker

    Fathom, 2016
    60 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 18000
  • Katherine Parker

    Indigo, 2014
    60 x 84 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 22000
  • Katherine Parker

    Before You Disapear, 2016
    60 x 84 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 22000
  • Katherine Parker

    Obscura, 2017
    68 x 64 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 20000
  • Katherine Parker

    Kick The Can, 2017
    84 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 22000
  • Katherine Parker

    Nails and Water, 2017
    60 x 48 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 15500
  • Katherine Parker

    Pale Edges, 2017
    48 x 36 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 9500
  • Katherine Parker

    Subliate, 2016
    68 x 64 inch (h x w)
    # oil painting
    USD 20000
  • Katherine Parker

    Touching Down, 2017
    84 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 22000
  • Katherine Parker

    Use Me Up, 2017
    60 x 48 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 15500
  • Katherine Parker

    Track, 2011
    48 x 72 inch (h x w)
    # Oil on canvas # Abstract # Painting
    USD 24000
  • Katherine Parker

    Firewall, 2014
    72 x 96 inch (h x w)
    # Oil on canvas # Abstract # Painting
    USD 28000
  • Katherine Parker

    Malta, 2010
    68 x 64 inch (h x w)
    # Oil painting
    USD 20000
  • Katherine Parker

    Undone, 2017
    60 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 18000
  • Katherine Parker

    The Conversation, 2017
    60 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 18000
  • Katherine Parker

    Always Blue, 2016
    48 x 36 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 9500
  • Katherine Parker

    Shell Game, 2018
    80 x 60 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 22000
  • Katherine Parker

    Dive I, 2020
    40 x 40 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 9000
  • Katherine Parker

    Murmur, 2021
    42 x 30 inch (h x w)
    # oil on canvas
    USD 7000