Don Voisine Opens At McKenzie Fine Arts 5/5

McKenzie Fine Art is pleased to announce an exhibition of new paintings by Don Voisine, his second solo show with the gallery. The exhibition opens Thursday, May 5th with a reception for the artist from 6 to 8 p.m. and runs through Saturday, June 11, 2011.

Don Voisine's reductive, hard-edged, oil on wood paintings are composed in a consistent format: overlapping fields of black are enclosed by solid bands of rich, bright color of varying width. The bands are paired top and bottom or left and right and the composition is set against a white or near-white background. The rectilinear black fields are articulated one from another by their texture, through the use of matte versus gloss finish, as well as by directional brushwork. The taut black planes are sometimes set in a grid, but more often are set at angles to one another.

In Voisine's new work, the angles have become more complicated, and the artist intentionally disrupts the geometric logic of the lines and planes as the eye travels from one side of the painting to the other. Subtle internal rhythms emerge: at times the black fields have a free-floating quality and give an impression of movement within deep space; in other works the matte versus glossy fields engage in a subtle pulsation, while in others the space is shallow and planar, punctuated by small diamond shapes or triangular cuts that pierce the intensity of the black void. Offsetting the weight of the black planes are narrow strips of additional color that counterbalance both the dark areas and the enclosing color bands, and provide movement and articulation within the composition. In these recent paintings the outer color bands are more saturated, with deeper tonalities than previously, and the paintings are executed with a sharp precision and clarity throughout. Regardless of scale, Voisine's paintings feel monumental and self-contained, straightforward but never austere, subtly nuanced and sophisticated. The artist achieves a remarkable diversity within a restricted format which nevertheless has seemingly endless possibilities for variation and exploration.

Voisine has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally for over three decades. Recent showings include group exhibitions at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Invitational in New York, the Portland Museum of Art Biennial in Maine, and numerous solo and group gallery exhibitions from San Francisco to Berlin. He is president of the American Abstract Artists, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; on Saturdays the gallery opens at 11:00 a.m. Mondays are by appointment.