Arthur Monroe: Special Presentation | 3rd Floor Gallery

 

Monroe’s output has been described as Black Abstract Expressionism, the somewhat pigeonholing term suggesting the necessity of yet another “un-telling” of the story of midcentury American painting—a massive revision to include all the women, artists of color, and others who were marginalized but who nonetheless persisted and produced important work. (…) It was immediately apparent that the large-scale gestural abstractions, produced between 1980 and 2012, were extremely accomplished. The viewer was drawn in by their rhythmic intensities, the linear storms of calligraphic black strokes, the honeycombs of vibrant color, and the grids that wove in and out of forms vaguely suggestive of Mayan hieroglyphs or tribal markings, influences cultivated over years of travel. Vestigial traces of Monroe’s body in motion clustered in overlays of sweeping, muscular strokes that further animated his restless, expressive style. Consistently, a sense of lyric grace was coupled with struggle, wherein one sensed the rigorous demands of making a painting in a purely spontaneous and direct way. – Jan Avgikos for “Arthur Monroe” on Artforum

 

 

His painting process honors the physical development of pigment on surface which is achieved through adding multiple layers of paint and building upon what existed before. The layers of paint worked on top of one another create insurmountable depth of mystery–– starting a painting from a state of unknowing. In his own words, “How do you make a painting out of things you don’t know?”