2020 Vision

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to open the 2020 exhibition season in the Larchmont, NY gallery with a group show featuring paintings by Steven Alexander, Daniel Anselmi, David Collins, Dana James and Josette Urso.

Steven Alexander is an American artist who makes abstract paintings characterized by luminous color, sensuous surfaces and iconic configurations. His works are composed as sensate visual events that embody potential states of being. They invite meditative encounters with the viewer's perception and imagination. Born in west Texas, Alexander spent his early years observing the vast skies and flat expanses of the southwest plains.

Alexander is a member of the American Abstract Artists group in New York. He has been awarded grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the Belin Foundation, a studio residency at MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center,
New York, NY and numerous public commissions. Alexander has been a visiting artist at Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, and an artist-in-residence at Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy, His work has been widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States and abroad. He is currently Professor of Visual Arts at Marywood University, Scranton, PA. He lives and works in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania.

Daniel Anselmi’s paintings explore the use of paint and paper in an ongoing dialogue between painting and collage. Eschewing new materials, the artist delights in the felt quality of the discarded; blueprints, ledgers, chart papers, and used canvas drop cloths become an integral part of the aesthetic conversation in his work. The artist applies paint to large pieces or intimate fragments of various materials to affix to his prepared surface. His materials and methodology offer countless opportunities to express color, line, and form. Though sourced materials are not intended to be recognizable in these abstractions, sometimes surface traces remain that become a moment of discovery for the discriminating observer. All of Anselmi’s artwork is untitled to eliminate references that may inform the viewer. Anselmi’s work has been widely exhibited throughout the United States and is in many private collections. The artist lives and works in Belfast, Maine.

David Collins continues to employ his personal language of shapes and structures that suggest folded paper, fragments of wings, domestic dwellings or industrial buildings. These images are drawn from childhood recollections of homes, construction sites in 1970s Dallas and from time spent in airplane hangars while visiting his father’s workplace. Geometric planes of color create a kaleidoscope of shapes that evoke floors, walls, eaves and overhangs; silhouettes conjure up cranes, cables and overpasses. Ultimately, these architectural notions do not remain whole; they fracture and fall away to reveal other chambers or the outside world. A simultaneity of interior and exterior space describes the liminal in-between. Amidst the shifting and multitudinous spaces, Collins’ paintings find order and resolution, ultimately achieving precise balance and perfect stillness.

Among his many distinctions, Collins has been honored with fellowships at Yaddo Artist Colony, Saratoga Springs, NY and Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, New York, NY. His work is in the collections of United States Department of State, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C, The Container Store Corporate Headquarters, Dallas, TX, General Electric, Hyatt Corporation, InSight Capital Ventures, New York, NY, Jesuit Dallas Museum, Dallas, TX, Meridian Teterboro, Teterboro Airport, Teterboro, NJ, and Pfizer Corporation, New York, NY, to name a few. David Collins is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. He lives and works on the North Fork of Long Island.

Dana James’ paintings channel the essence of sound waves, water, and natural light. Inherent in the artist’s evocation of water and land is the implication of “drift”, the state of floating between catharsis and danger, between peace and abandonment, and between fear and diving in. James’ paintings exhibit an exquisite sense of touch. She employs multiple mediums and textures by pouring paint and employing a variety of mark-making techniques; the artist builds meaning and interest through this layering and sometimes by combining canvases and ideas with sewing. Continually investigating and pushing the boundaries between abstraction and representation, James draws on wide-ranging existential themes while referencing the great American tradition of Color Field Painting with stunning originality.

Dana James earned her BFA from School of Visual Arts, New York, NY. Her work has been exhibited extensively in New York and throughout the United States. Her work can be found in private and public collections including the ISLIP Museum of Art, Islip, NY and the Collection of Lion Tree Capital in New York, NY. She has been featured in publications such as Art Critical, ArtSpace, and Hyperallergic. Dana James is a New York native currently living and working in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Teetering between the urban and natural, Josette Urso makes paintings working directly and urgently in response to her immediate environment. Her approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intuitive leaps of scale, color and wayward geometry. The play of visual coincidence creates pleasures, just as it keys us into the generative power of chaos. In all her work, Urso’s visual contrasts and cross-fertilizations unfold and are cumulative, non-linear, free flowing and interpretive. Space becomes an ambiguous and malleable substance; its manipulation and acrobatic mark-making become a kind of gymnasium of expertly placed color and shape.

“For me, painting parallels the act of seeing and is the most direct link to private time with the physical world. Despite the urgency of my process, as I work, time still slows down. My work becomes a record of this exploration and a reflection of my inherent energy and reason for living.”

• Josette Urso, 2017

Urso is the recipient of grants from The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Basil H. Alkazzi Award, USA, and the Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation and has been honored with residencies at Yaddo, Ucross Foundation, and The Millay Colony for the Arts in the United States, as well as residencies in Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, Cambodia and Taiwan. Urso’s artwork has been acquired by numerous museums and private collections worldwide including The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL, Stadtmuseum, Schwandorf, Germany and Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH, to name a few. Urso lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Please contact our staff with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.

Kenise Barnes, director: [email protected]
Lani Holloway, associate director (Larchmont): [email protected]
Marissa Vassallo: Admin. and sales support: [email protected]

We maintain an extensive inventory in our lower-level warehouse that includes a private presentation room. We always have a wide selection of paintings, drawings, prints, monoprints and photographs to offer collectors.

Services:

• Complimentary in-home or in-office consultations.
• Artwork may be seen three day on-approval basis.
• Delivery and installation available.