Jill Nathanson

Empirical Empyrean (2017), the title of one of Jill Nathanson's fifteen abstract paintings in "Cadence" at Berry Campbell, says it all. Each painting is built out of discrete, translucent color areas that thicken where they overlap. As they coalesce into fields, juxtapositions of hue prompt the eye to unify the compositions. The color transcends local incident, while the translucency generates an overall glow.

At Berry Campbell in Chelsea, we have “Jill Nathanson: Cadence” (through June 30). This lovely show, of 17 shimmering veils of color, picks up where the artist’s notable last show left off, and carries the unique presence she has established on to new triumphs.

Today, we’re meeting Jill Nathanson, a contemporary painter whose work feels summery and uplifting, and stands out from your typical pretty abstracts. Her solo show at a New York gallery just opened, so find out what you need to know about the hows and whys of her work.

An artist who belongs to the Color Field legacy, according to the gallery, Jill Nathanson is a painter who goes beyond that tradition to reduce painting to its physical essence. At Berry Campbell, Nathanson will present 19 recent works, including important large-scale paintings.

Thanks to interior designer Katherine Hammond and architects CWB Architects for including Jill Nathanson’s painting “Untouchable Day” in their transformative renovation of a Brooklyn Townhouse.

Some of the additions are featured in The Evolution of Mark-making, now on display on the second floor. Project Atrium artist Shinique Smith donated her Something from Nothing Bundle (2008). The hanging satellite contains clothing and accessories donated to a church in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which came to the artist when New Orleans refused clothing in lieu of funds.

Jill Nathanson is a talented painter who makes magic on canvas by using a technique of poured polymer, which forms overlapping layers of translucency that provide unfamiliar albeit fresh gorgeous hues and are delightful to examine and savor. Over the last four decades, she has deepened her study of color dynamics through methodically delving into chance and risk to ultimately create unity. Berry Campbell, New York. (http://www.berrycampbell.com/)    

Christine Berry and Martha Campbell launched their gallery to bring attention to the works of a selection of postwar and contemporary artists and revealing how these artists have advanced ideas and lessons in powerful and new directions. Berry Campbell provided five paintings by Jill Nathanson for MOCA Jacksonville's Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction. Berry traveled to Jacksonville to see the exhibition, and we asked her a few questions.

Noah Becker Visits the New York Studio of Artist Jill Nathanson

Nathanson became fascinated by color painting at Bennington College. She arrived at the school in the mid-1970s, when it was at the center of color field abstraction. From Kenneth Noland and Larry Poons, she learned to avoid composing through dark and light tones and to give color an ever-greater role in structuring a painting. Over the last four decades, she has deepened her exploration of color dynamics, seeking to transmit affective realities of seeing. She courts chaos in her method, through employing chance, but she also works methodically—each overlay of color takes a day to dry.  For the viewer, her paintings evoke energies in the body as well as optical experience, and the physical presence of each painting resists immediate assimilation, involving a dynamic, layered search for unity.