Helen Frankenthaler, Stella Polaris (1990). Acrylic on canvas. 243.8 x 274.3 cm. © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, New York. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian, New York. Photo: Rob McKeever.
Helen Frankenthaler, Western Roadmap (1991) (detail). Acrylic on canvas. 147.3 x 264.2 cm. © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, New York. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian, New York. Photo: Rob McKeever.
Helen Frankenthaler, Magnet (1992). Acrylic on canvas. 269.2 x 207.6 cm. © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, New York. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian, New York. Photo: Rob McKeever.
Helen Frankenthaler‘s aesthetic wonders take centre stage at Gagosian‘s 541 West 24th Street gallery in New York in the American painter’s latest exhibition Drawing within Nature: Paintings from the 1990s (9 March–15 April 2023).
A pioneer of abstract expressionism, Frankenthaler was never one to shy away from tactile practice.
In what she called her ‘abstract climates’, Frankenthaler’s stimulating brushstrokes are eager and expressive.
Beholden to emotive dispositions, her paintings project a tangle of sentiments onto onlookers that are both visceral and evocative.
A sense of immediacy leaps out from her canvases. From her thoughtful placement of paint and moments of stillness, to bursts of chaotic colour and swells of rough texture, Frankenthaler’s work is unrestrained.
Parading the artist’s expressive process, Drawing within Nature showcases Frankenthaler’s experimental methods and reinforces her standing as one of the great postwar abstract expressionist painters of the 20th century.
Main image: Helen Frankenthaler, Western Roadmap (1991) (detail). Acrylic on canvas. 147.3 x 264.2 cm. © 2023 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./Artists Rights Society, New York. Photo: Rob McKeever.
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