Natalie Frank & Matt Lifson

NATALIE FRANK: INTERMISSION.

Acme is pleased to present Intermission., a solo exhibition of new work by New York based artist Natalie Frank. Cut wooden paintings and paper pulp paintings show glimpses of perverse private dramas and the theatrical spaces in which they are performed. In one painting, two women interact over a vase that is cut away from the painting. The woman who is most fleshed out extrudes two fingers in instruction, a beckoning invitation. The second woman, more abstracted and sewn up the side, hovers. In the other paintings, women perform: dancing on stage and dancing in front of a fractured sky. In another painting, a woman's face peers into an intimate space of men at a bathhouse, where a scale discrepancy leads the viewer to question who is on the outside and who is on the inside.

Also included in the show are paper pulp paintings that punctuate the space, populating the walls with portraits of women who howl, wear disguises and play with dogs. These paintings, made at Dieu Donné, a New York paper-making atelier, use pulp to simulate paint in some areas, while using the materiality of the paper to evoke areas of decorative, gestural abstraction. All were made by dripping, spooning and brushing pulp paint, which is made up of tiny particles of paper suspended in water, and placed onto a cotton or linen, wet, paper base.

Presented on yellow walls, Frank's new paintings in paper and on wood portray women who have created worlds of their own liking--full of voyeurism, performance, pets and the hot colors and exuberance of horror films.

MATT LIFSON: PART 2