Louise has been painting for awhile and her works reflect it. I want to reintroduce a word into the vernacular for describing paintings, and that word is "tough."
Louise Fishman makes "tough paintings" in a period when most painters don't have a clue what this means. Ms. Fishman's paintings are direct, raw expressions of the action and thinking process of the making of a painting. There is no bullshit, just paint, laid on directly, with a forceful intent.
When one is willing to accept this premise, a premise that we are vicariously experiencing the process of making the painting and accepting it as a metaphor for affecting the world in which we live. This process, this process of making a mark, a mark made so deliberately and with intent, is a metaphor for all our of illusions we harbor about a life which we do not control.
The painting Telling, dark to the point of being nearly almost all black, touches on that point where we do not want to go. It sits silently, a testament to a specific point in psychological time.
Within all this bravado, using this forcefully directed implement which leaves its shadow as a mark, lies a hidden sensitivity to truths which lie obliquely to apparent events. These marks which have a history coincident with the object, the painting, itself. These marks, furrows in the paint, scratching, colliding or smearing towards some temporal truth, a point of stoppage.
Tough painting.
Louise Fishman
GEOGRAPHY 2007
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 65 inches
182.9 x 165.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
SLIPPERY SLOPE 2006
Oil on linen
88 x 65 inches
223.5 x 165.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
ARCTIC SEA 2007
Acrylic on canvas
72 x 65 inches
182.9 x 165.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
HEART ON FIRE 2007
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 39 inches
167.6 x 99.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
SWARM OF DREAMS 2007
Acrylic on canvas
66 x 39 inches
167.6 x 99.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
COOKED AND BURNT 2007
Oil on linen
66 x 39 inches
167.6 x 99.1 cm.
Louise Fishman
FIRE AND ICE 2009
Oil on jute
66 1/4 x 38 3/4 inches
168.3 x 98.4 cm.
Louise Fishman
TELLING 007
Oil on linen
70 x 56 inches
177.8 x 142.2 cm
3 comments:
Great discoveries on your blog, especially Josh Smith, that saved my Sunday, thanks a lot and best regards, Hans
Hey Hans,
Thanks for the comment, I always wonder if anyone reads this stuff.
I liked Josh Smith's paintings too. Usually before I take the time to write something up, I try to see the show twice. It was the case with Josh Smith's paintings and in the end I visited the gallery a half dozen times. The paintings held up and for me that's what counts.
I guess it's becoming spring in the Caucasus? That must be nice.
I've been enjoying Fishman's work in recent years, although I came late to the party (meaning I was unaware of her work). But maybe paintings and people are similar in that they appear to us when we need them most. I agree George, not many painters working in this direct way. It's refreshing to see someone who seems to paint without something imposed on them from outside. Very pure.
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