Sol Kordich at Mariane Ibrahim

 

So much thought and skill has gone into these  ambitious pieces.

Coming Back to the One, 2024,  75 x 77

A cosmic theme presented by swirling, virtuosic brush work.

It’s just that it makes me feel nothing.

Sensual - but not compelling 

Serious but not profound

Energetic but not powerful

Appealing but not beautiful 

This is an aesthetic perhaps better realized with died fabric rather than paint.

The images don’t really seem appropriate for flat, rectangular surfaces,

and the artist seems to be pulling yarn rather that attaching herself to a canvas through the tip of a paint laden brush.

Sol Kordich (b.  Buenos Aires, 1995) was trained as an architect, and the impersonality here would fit better in the lobby of a glistening new hi-rise than in the more personal space of an apartment.

Bill Conger at 65 Grand

Any diversion from popular cartoon-like art is much to be welcomed into the Chicago artworld.  No garish colors and aggressive figuration here.  These pieces resemble  circular Petri dishes that have been marked up by bacteria on a thin film of agar. So what we feel here is a force of nature, not the hand of man.  There was some gestural painting done at the beginning of the process, but it was transferred and layered onto another support.

From a distance, these meditative circles might suggest classical Chinese landscape painting - but there is nothing monumental or sentimental about them.  It takes so much effort to feel how they pull together as a design, you might as well be  looking at something that happened rather than something that was shaped.  The swirling  lines shown above might be the strands of hair pulled into the drain of a bathtub.  Perhaps photography  is the best way to create such effects - it's certainly less labor intensive.

Though not readily connectable to Chicago (as are the paintings of the other William Conger), this cool, earth-tone nature art is widely made in the Mid-west.  (and the artist lives downstate).  Before it’s closing, Perimeter Gallery was a good place to find it.

detail

 

Can you feel any kind of human striving, play, or emotion in here ?  It might require a dedication, formal sensitivity, and patience greater than my own.  Yet still -  when so many other kinds of painting swiftly transport me to ecstasy - why would I want to do so much work?

These pieces feel less like a celebration than a penance.