More graphite: James Busby at Stux

Wingspan, 2012

James Busby also uses graphite to create a monochromatic palette in his works. Busby's Wingspan: New Works exhibition up at Stux Gallery through March 17 shows many large, textured graphite panels. Wingspan, above, shows the artist manipulating the wet graphite over white gesso to create a beautifully textured surface. The lines are painstakingly hand tooled.

Disc 2, 2011

The artist's previous work in graphite was smaller, like the work above. Busby used a layer of graphite that he then ground down to a smooth sheen as a surface. In works like this, the colors that come out so clearly in this photograph are more subdued and vary depending on the angle you look at them. After moving to a larger studio, his work also got bigger. Cart, below, show him "framing" one of his polished graphite surfaces with a cart he found in this new studio, already covered in flecks of fiberglass. 

Cart, 2012

The texture of the fiberglass somehow migrates to Busby's large newer works. I greatly prefer the traces of the human hand left in the mark-making of works like 3 Panel, with its expansive 96 x 144 inch surface.

3 Panel, 2011

Richard Forster's Graphite Realism

Hesser nude with tape, 2011

Richard Forster has his first solo exhibition up at FLAG Art Foundation, featuring three series of graphite drawings of incredible skill. These simulacrums of photographs resemble soft, serene Gerard Richter photo paintings. However, the small size of the works and trompe l'oeil details, through clever borders and watercolor tape effects, differentiates them, as does the overall effect of seeing them in a series.

One of the series, installation view above, depicts workers dismantling the Bauhaus, from archival footage. The subtle monochormatic grpahit of the palette, the close but faked realism/ photojournalism, and the perfection of the subtly drawn lines are calming and interesting at the same time.

His other two series come from vintage photogrpahs of naked woman, in a sort of Victorian style, and from aerial views of the coastline near the artist's hometown, Saltburn-by-the Sea, England. The coastline drawings feel especially meditative, as if all the tiny strokes making them have been completed in a kind of trance. The exhibition is up at FLAG Art Foundation in Chelsea through May 19.

Incoming sea's edge on fourteen consecutive occasions at random time intervals, Saltburn-by-the Sea, Jan 5 2010; 11:30am-11:37am

Williamsburg 2nd Fridays Gallery Crawl

It's not all crowded subway trains in my neighborhood

What do you know? I moved to Williamsburg just in time for the 2nd Fridays gallery crawl. It will be great to see a bit more of my new neighborhood, an a few galleries I like (Slate Gallery for example) are having events and some I'm not familiar with (Graphite with a new show by Tae Hwang) come recommended.

Full list of events and spaces if you are so inclined:

• Tae Hwang In Between at Graphite
• "Exploring 100 Years of Figurative Art: Part II " Including the Realists" at Figureworks
• Sarah H. Paulson Your point will change... at Alice Chilton Gallery
• Chino Amobi Pregnancy Pact at Like The Spice
• Artist Talk: Barbara Thomas The Floating Color Series at Slate Gallery

And then there's also:

Gitana Rosa (Can't forget the show name: Hung: Checking out the Contemporary Male)
19 Hope St. #7 (b/w Roebling and Havemeyer)


Black and White Gallery (less than a block from my new apartment)
483 Driggs Avenue (between N 10th and N 9th)

Hogar Collection (recommended to me)
362 Grand Street (the corner of Marcy Ave)

Pierogi ( <3 )
177 N. 9th St. Brooklyn