I got a an email about this show in Santa Fe from a friend, but I was back in Mass. and didn’t see the show.  After looking at the work online, I’m thinking that this would be one show that if I could I would fly specifically to see.

http://gebertcontemporary.com/exhibitions/68/

“Madremanya” by Tim Craighead
Oil, alkyd, and casein on linen
72 X 60 inches

I’ve seen Tim Craighead’s work before, over the past 10 – 15 years at the Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe. I’ve always liked it, from the first time I saw them. I’ve mostly seen the paintings on paper, though I did see large paintings in a show years ago.

I love these paintings.  I often find that abstract paintings have little relevance outside of the artist’s mind.  Granted, I do like a story line or a narrative of some kind, and abstraction seems too arbitrary and the point the artist is making escapes me.  I do like abstraction, but bot all of it anymore than I would like all of realistic painting.

Why do I like these?  They are so painterly: the variety of mark-making and line quality, the movement around & within the painting, the color harmonies and discords, patterns that emerge just long enough to dissolve as you start to follow them… and the surprises. These paintings continue surprising me the more I keep looking.

For example the scrim of white marks swimming up the center of the blue.  It could be read that the idea of water is trying to reach the idea of a boat.

I think it’s true for most of us that if we are given a picture we look for words to describe it, and if we are given words we conjure the pictures that the words elicit.

“Signal” oil, alkyd, and casein on linen
72 X 60 inches

“Signal” compels me in part because of the contrast between the soft edged white and gold shapes against which the fine white and black drawing lines are so delicate and precise.