Jill Nathanson: Chord Field

In a Season of Abstract Painting at New York Galleries, These Two Artists Stand Out

With their current shows, Josette Urso and Jill Nathanson, veteran abstractionists both, have come up with their most ambitious and adventurous pictures to date.

By Mario Naves
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 12:57:50 pm

‘Jill Nathanson: Chord Field’
Berry Campbell Gallery
Until August 16

Berry Campbell has mounted “Jill Nathanson: Chord Field.” This is the gallery’s fourth showing of the artist’s studiously turned variations on Color Field painting, a mode of art-making in which expansive areas of color are applied through means that are “hands off.” Painters like Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, and Jules Olitski opted for techniques that emphasized process over touch. Of course, “touch” manifests itself in a variety of ways. In Ms. Nathanson’s case, it is through the deliberate pouring of acrylics. The resulting scrims of color take on a waxy tactility that radiates a muffled and elusive light.

Writing in the accompanying catalog, David Rhodes mentions how “The Death of Actaeon” (1559-76) by Titian is pivotal in understanding Ms. Nathanson’s art. What, you might wonder, does a Venetian Master have to do with a contemporary artist and her buckets of paint? Mr. Rhodes mentions “discord and unease” inherent to the Titian. Ms. Nathanson points to how its “coloristic action … has been and continues to be totally gripping.” What Ms. Nathanson and Signore Tiziano share is the drama that can be generated through fraught delicacies of form.