Joe Reihsen’s New Paintings on View at The Hole in “Microclimates”
In the year 2023, it feels like an impossibly rare occurrence to happen upon a painting that is unlike anything you’ve seen before. That’s not to say that paintings that celebrate the histories of the makers that came before them can’t be inventive in their own right; it just seems like most everything that an artist could do when applying paint to a flat surface has already been done. Artist Joe Reihsen is proving that there is much to be explored with this ever-present medium.
Open this week at The Hole’s Tribeca gallery, Reihsen has assembled a series of astonishing, technically-layered new paintings for his first exhibition in New York in more than five years, entitled “Microclimates.”
Joe Reihsen, “Boulders 5,” 2023, 35 x 30 inches, courtesy of the artist.
Joe Reihsen’s painting is an uncharted document of fragments depicting an unfamiliar world
Each canvas presents a world. Brimming with color, patterns, and shapes, the works look like maps of indecipherable territories. Vibrantly hued land masses float atop seascapes of pigment splatters that contour and respond to the canvas they inhabit. Above, each colored zone is carefully assembled with both exactitude and the fluidness of an artist’s hand. Small, large, narrow, familiar, or unnatural shapes are created with seemingly uninterrupted strokes of oil paint. They might be referencing nature, or perhaps something entirely new; an uncharted document of fragments depicting an unfamiliar world.
Without the use of tape, projectors, or a cumbersome camera obscura, Reihsen intuitively forms each composition based on his own connection to the materials he uses. There is a palpable trust between maker and material. This choreography of mark-making, and the focus with which each form is completed reinforces this mutual respect of process. In an astute text by critic and writer Janelle Zara that accompanies the exhibition, it is clear how integral this fluidity of connection to paint guides the artist’s process.
Joe Reihsen, “Cave 2,” 2023, courtesy of the artist.
Improvisation and spontaneity permeate each work, but there is also a clear methodology and intentionality with how the depicted forms commingle in space. Without the harsh divisions inherent to work that employs techniques like painting shapes mapped out with tape or rulers, there are so many mesmerizing organic connections between shape, space, and line that draw this viewer in for deep examination.
Joe Reihsen, “Tributaries 5,” 2023, 66 x 48 inches, courtesy of the artist.
Why You Should See “Joe Reihsen: Microclimates”
In a world where so much is automated, and images are often only read through a digital screen, it is incredibly refreshing to experience Reihsen’s paintings, unmarred by overtly mechanical processes in art making. An artist made these paintings. I highly recommend taking the time to look.
“Joe Reihsen: Microclimates” is on view at The Hole’s Tribeca Gallery through October 14, 2023.
Joe Reihsen, “Tributaries 8,” 2023, courtesy of the artist.
Joe Reihsen, “Tributaries 7,” 2023, 60 x 47, courtesy of the artist.
