James Nares
Broadway II, 2019
New York City's oldest surviving downtown sidewalks were made almost 200 years ago by immigrant …
James Nares is best known for her process-oriented paintings in which a large, isolated brushstroke appears to float across a blank monochrome surface. To achieve this sense of weightlessness, Nares invented a special apparatus that enables her hang above the picture and paint from directly overhead, avoiding any drips or other “sign of gravity” which might result from painting onto an upright canvas. Nares likens her artistic routine to hitting a home run in baseball, sometimes achievable in one go but more often requiring multiple attempts to accomplish. Though her emphatic brushwork resembles that of certain Abstract Expressionists, she sees her practice more as one of cycle and repetition as opposed to the relatively unconstrained mark making of the so-called “action painters.”
New York City's oldest surviving downtown sidewalks were made almost 200 years ago by immigrant masons who lined the streets with giant paving stones of solid granite. These monolithic slabs they then chiseled with improvised marks and designs, to prevent pedestrians from slipping. These carvings have withstood …
James Nares is best known for her process-oriented paintings in which a large, isolated brushstroke appears to float across a blank monochrome surface. To achieve this sense of weightlessness, Nares invented a special apparatus that enables her hang above the picture and paint from directly overhead, avoiding any drips or other “sign of gravity” which might result from painting onto an upright canvas. Nares likens her artistic routine to hitting a home run in baseball, sometimes achievable in one go but more often requiring multiple attempts to accomplish. Though her emphatic brushwork resembles that of certain Abstract Expressionists, she sees her practice more as one of cycle and repetition as opposed to the relatively unconstrained mark making of the so-called “action painters.”
