Judith Braun has been a mainstay of the Brooklyn / Lower
East Side art scene for years. And as Chelsea dies a slow death, it is nice to
see that the meek shall inherit the art world or at least people like Braun,
Lauren Monk, and Austin Thomas will find their solo shows in more prestigious
galleries, like Joe Sheftel. Despite a flap in Art Fag City over the placement
of a drawing, Joe Sheftel has had a wonderful string of shows since they’ve
opened including May I Draw, their
current show of Braun’s drawings. If you haven’t met Judith Braun at an opening
or art function yet, she is awfully sweet, which has always made me feel like a
terrible person for questioning her tendency to just make drawings with her
fingers. To her credit, the show is a nice mix of earlier work that is in
keeping with what you might know of her work, but there was a lot surprising
work too. Of the familiar work there were lots abstract shapes, which could be visualizations
of chakras or something of that ilk. The one piece of finger-based drawing on a
yellowing paper is the strongest piece in the show. The surprises included a
faded text piece some very unfinger-like dot drawings that could have been made
with a computer. It is nice to see such diversity from Braun. The work was not at
all what I expected, which is a pleasure. Judith isn’t old, but certainly there
are artists that get to a particular age or level of recognition and then go on
autopilot until they die. So hats off to Judith for, over the last half a
decade or so, continuing to make quality and diverse work as an artist.
Through Apr. 21st
0 comments:
Post a Comment