Alex Kwartler

Nathalie Karg is pleased to present A Superficial Lyric, new paintings by Alex Kwartler. The exhibition presents two groups of paintings made simultaneously over the past year.

In the first, a series of quick marks vaguely suggest a body in space. Is this an individual or an idea of a person? The body is un-whole, a collection of fractured marks scaled and projected across an empty field. The shapes of the marks are all slowly adjusted and rearticulated, each receiving its own varying formal treatment resulting in a surface that is both immediate and meticulous.

The second group of works are ‘frescoes’. Made with Venetian plaster, which dries almost immediately, the surface is covered in a field of loose brush-marks on plywood. The temporal space of the paintings’ execution is suspended and fossilized. The mark is in the surface, as is the reflected architecture of the gallery space.

The installation extends the works internal rhythms and ruptures of space, echoing the ready-made dimensions of the gallery walls. There is a paradoxical holism in both bodies of work between the interiority of a fleeting mental sketch and a material process anchored in the matter-of-factness of appearances.

Alex Kwartler received his BFA from Cooper Union (New York). Selected exhibitions include Wallspace Gallery, New York, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas, and P. S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, New York. He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.