4 Sensational Painters Who Stole the Show at Independent New York 2020, Where Oil-on-Canvas Is Still the Cutting Edge

If New York art fairs were were
like the film industry, the Armory Show would be the big-studio
blockbuster and the Independent New York would be the cool
indie festival film: where the real critics go for substance and
style.

It’s also a great place to
discover new talent young and old—something that’s become nearly
impossible at its blue-chip sibling on the piers. With that in
mind, here are the best discoveries at this year’s Independent, the
12th edition of the fair. A hint: painting stole the
show.

Leslie Kerr at The Landing

On the Walls: On view at
the Landing’s booth is a group of bold paintings by Leslie Kerr, a
California artist who died in 1992. Though painted in the ‘60s,
Kerr’s work traffics in the kind of minimal, graphic pop-symbolism
that’s everywhere right now, from the likes of Julie Curtiss and
Emily Mae Smith.

“They feel so fresh, like they
were painted yesterday,” says Gerard O’Brien, the LA gallery’s
owner. “But when you get away from them, you see that there’s a lot
more there. They’re very substantive paintings.”

After including Kerr’s work in
a show dedicated to San
Francisco’s famous Dilexi Gallery last year, O’Brien came across a “trove of
Kerr’s work” in an estate. “I freaked out,” he recalls.

Price Range: $30,000-$35,000

Leigh Ruple at PAGE (NYC)

On the Walls: Color is
likely the first thing you’ll notice when passing Leigh Ruple’s
large-scale work on view at PAGE (NYC)’s booth. The New York-based
painter’s city scenes and strange portraits are saturated in hues
bright enough to make you want to wear sunglasses. It keys you into
the subtle surrealism at play. In Friendship (2020), for instance, three neon-tined women
make animal shadows below the signage of a deli, while in
Trust (2020) the light from a window falls in paisley
patterns on a seated subject. 

Lucas Page, the owner of the
gallery, started working with Ruple two years ago after a studio
visit and mounted a solo show by the
artist last
spring.

Price Range: $10,000

Jessie Homer French at Various Small Fires

On the Walls: With a
flattened, omniscient eye, self-taught artist Jessie Homer French
hones in on scenes from her rural California town that toe the line
between the mundane and the macabre. In Emily Carr In The Ross Bay Cemetary
(2000), for example, she shows us
the way the roots of a tree have wrapped themselves around the
bodies buried below a quaint graveyard, while in
Chernobyl Hunt
(2019), bright yellow nuclear signs
interrupt an otherwise drab picture of wolves on a gray winter day.
In Malibu
(2019), brush fires line a pair of
silhouetted hills below a blood orange sky. It’s both beautiful and
haunting.  

Various Small Fires’s founder
Esther Kim Varet was introduced to Homer French’s work three years
ago through fellow gallery artist Billy Al Bengston. 

Price Range: $12,000-$20,000

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

On the Walls: Tunji
Adeniyi-Jones’s work has drawn comparisons to that of Henri Matisse
in the past. With his spring garden color palette and curving,
elongated figures, the reference is particularly apt at
Independent, where the 27-year-old painter debuts a series of
paintings and works on paper inspired by his time in Dakar,
Senegal, at Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock residency
program.

In a trio of complementary
canvases that evoke West African rituals, scarred figures dance
among birds and flowers before a monochromatic backdrop. In
Greeting Gifts
(2020), which depicts a more
allegorical scene, a woman is offered a pair of masks by two
men.

Price Range: $3,000 for
works on paper; $25,000 for paintings

The post 4 Sensational Painters Who Stole the Show at
Independent New York 2020, Where Oil-on-Canvas Is Still the Cutting
Edge appeared first on artnet News.