Cynthia Reeves Exhibits at Art Miami 2010 12/1-5

At Art Miami 2010, Cynthia-Reeves features work with an approach that is process apparent, based on strong conceptual foundations and an innovative use of everyday materials. Represented artists' works demonstrate technical prowess, powerful mark making, impeccable craftsmanship, and an engagement with textural concerns. Much of the art reflects an ongoing inquiry into use of natural media and their transformation into unexpected and extraordinary sculptural works or environments. Collectively the work demonstrates that art is an intellectual and aesthetic inquiry that includes both visual and visceral experiences.

Johannes Brus is an established German photographer who pioneered the use of multiple negative prints. His distinctly rich color palette comes from the artist's innovative use of varied chemical washes, which he paints directly onto his papers' surfaces. In reaction to the hard-edged realism often present in photography, Brus began working in an almost painterly fashion with the developing agents. His subjects seem to emerge from a lush background of an altered, almost dreamlike, environment.

Brus' position, when he first began working in Germany in the 1960's was decidedly anti-academic. The art world was still preoccupied with photography serving as a documentary tool, rather than a means of artist expression akin with painting and sculpture and other older and more established media. Brus' first series were surrealistic rather than documentarian, and included fantastical subject matters like dancing cucumbers. Incorporating humor, fantasy, and a lack of seriousness have been persistent concerns of Brus', who banded together with a group of like minded anti-establishments artists at the Düsseldorf Art Accademie including Sigmar Polke, Bernhard Johannes Blume and Joseph Beuys.

A Chinese painter who splits his time between New York City and Beijing, Shen Chen recapitulates the meditative and deliberative brushwork associated with traditional Chinese ink brush drawing. Chen's vernacular, however, is decidedly contemporary. His fully abstract paintings are a study in line, color, and tonality, and reference the aesthetic of 1960's minimalism.

Originally from Shanghai, Lianghong Feng now lives and works in Beijing. His brushwork references Abstract Expressionism as well as traditional Chinese calligraphy. Through his heavily worked surfaces, Feng builds up his paintings' rich texture and color palette-two of his trademarks. As the paint is drying, Feng incises back into the surface with the wooden end of his brush, revealing the under-layers. His fine line work recalls the lyricism of calligraphy and imbues his surfaces with a wonderful tension.