William Jacobs

William Jacobs "Untitled 3 (Faces)", original enamel on metal tile

ca 1960's

Alexis Portilla obtained his Masters of Fine Arts at Columbia University in 1990. His bold linear lines, use of symbols, pictographs and strong colors create atmospheric abstracts. ...

Artist's Statement: "This painting harkens back to a series called "Gridish" that I created over the past couple of years, comprising similar rectangular shapes with complex surfaces incorporating tar, house paint, enamel safety paint and other materials. Here, though, the forms are isolated in negative space rather than stacked in a grid, which gives them a more iconic quality." “Lyman’s work evolves restlessly, with the common elements generally being deft and unusual color choices that balance assonance and dissonance, and vestiges of the hand and facture purposely left in the paintings. The negative space is often so meticulously worked that it’s almost as if the objects – usually simple shapes – are there as much to complement the background as vice versa. Despite the often bold colors there is an elegance about his paintings that prevents them from being either loud or decorative. " Artbeit Zeitschrift “His paintings are a refreshing departure from the current abstract art world’s seemingly endless parade of fields of color with scribbles providing form, a style that is easily mimicked and has become a sort of “safe,” accessible go-to. There are confident decisions in these paintings appearing as commitments of strongly delineated forms and unexpected collisions of color that give the work a visceral, confident and playful soul, increasingly missing from contemporary expressionist abstraction. They are the paintings of a real painter rather than a decorative artist.” ArtSeen, 2018 (from a collector): "Love your work. We collect colorists like Wolf Kahn and Jennifer Bartlett, whom I commissioned a piece from that is in the entrance of Mayo Clinic. We are old fans...