FOR 2-9

JOE FYFE: PAINTINGS AT JG/CONTEMPORARY

ak/gs set 1-31 #686797

NEW YORK CITY — abstract paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Joe Fyfe are on exhibit at JG/Contemporary through March 10. A full-color catalog with a foreword by John Zinsser has been produced for the show, which is Fyfe’s second solo exhibit at JG/Contemporary.

Featured are more than a dozen large works, as well as a number of smaller works executed in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The show demonstrates the artist’s development of pictorial ideas that are informed by both everyday life and Eastern and Western artistic traditions, as well as by modernist music and architecture.

The texture of the surfaces is important to Fyfe’s work. Using lightly primed burlap, felt and a modicum of paint color to create his compositions, he achieves a diffident, handmade quality that is seemingly at odds with his ambition. While his work has always been marked by restraint, Fyfe’s more recent work incorporates a larger array of materials and colors such as  terrycloth, muslin, gauze and linen, all within the same painting.

Fyfe is currently a Fulbright Independent Research Fellow, working in Cambodia and Vietnam. He received a BFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia, and has had recent solo exhibitions at Galerie Pitch, Paris; Mai’s Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City; and Ryllega Gallery in Hanoi.

Fyfe was awarded a 2005 Pollock-Krasner Award, a 2002 Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation grant and has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo and MacDowell colonies. Fyfe writes for Art in America, Bomb and Gay City News, Artcritical.com, among other publications.

JG/Contemporary is a department of James Graham & Sons, which is celebrating its 150th year in business. It is at 1014 Madison Avenue. Visit www.jamesgrahamandsons.com or call 212-535-5767 for information.

FOR 2-9

MEGAN OLSON, “URBAN NATURE,” DAVIDSON CONTEMPORARY

ak/gs set 2-1 #686797

NEW YORK CITY — Davidson Contemporary will present new works by Megan Olson for her third solo show, February 13–March 15. Her work continues her exploration of line drawings and paintings and will also include an installation called “Urban Nature,” where Olson will construct a garden setting in which to show site-specific works on paper.

Olson’s perception of the world is expressed through her efforts to aestheticize experience. Since moving back to the East Coast after attending San Francisco Institute of the Arts, Olson’s body of work has captured the vibrancy of living in New York City, while also realizing an innate connection to the nature that surrounded her as an only child growing up in rural Connecticut. “Urban Nature” depicts themes related to particular experiences that Olson recalls, and thus becomes a place for reflection and peace.

Living in a city, Olson funds inspiration largely from the graffiti that is as ubiquitous as plant life in the countryside. “Urban Nature” is a way to fuse these two experiences. Using inspiration from graffiti, nature, Japanese paper and multiple mediums, “Urban Nature” created a sense of escape into both worlds simultaneously.

Davidson Contemporary is at 724 Fifth Avenue. Visit www.davidsoncontemporary.com or call 212-759-7555.