Natural Responsibility: 2nd Floor Gallery

Van Doren Waxter is pleased to present Natural Responsibility, a group show featuring contemporary women artists who innovated abstract art through formal and conceptual experimentation. The exhibition includes works by Marsha Cottrell, Louise Fishman, Nancy Lorenz, Zoe Longfield, Vera Molnar, Mariah Robertson, Hedda Sterne, Jackie Saccoccio, and Anne Truitt, spanning sculpture, painting, photography, and computer-generated art.

 

Throughout the evolution of abstract art, these artists were often associated with movements such as Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism. However, by interweaving a sense of referentiality and personal specificity into their body of work, they defied some of the core principles of these movements– standing out as artists who cannot be categorized into a single movement.

 

Truitt writes in her studio journal, “The hallmark of a decision in line with one’s inner development is a feeling of having laid down a burden and picked up a more natural responsibility.” The works brought together in this exhibition share this natural responsibility– the relentless inquiry into color relationship, shape, and structure, as well as psychology, spirituality, and technology. Fishman and Saccoccio share the trait of imbuing physical movement and gestures with an emotional immediacy. They embrace association in their abstract and painterly canvases– Fishman titling her paintings with phrases from literature, and Saccoccio unraveling the presence of the figure in the pools and splatters of paint. Molnar and Cottrell both incorporate mechanical systems into their process of image-making– Molnar with the first-generation computer, and Cottrell with the commonly used inkjet printer. Exploring the overlap between art and technology through procedural approaches, both artists evoke a visual sensation unlike any other abstract painting or drawing.

 

These women artists were not only successful in their innovative use of materials but also in articulating the complex methods of image-making that encapsulate a sense of self, and the impressions of the world experienced through that selfhood. Natural Responsibility aims to celebrate the women artists whose pursuit of individuality and originality took abstract art beyond the modes and philosophies established by the male artists of the time.