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Young Moderns: Sarah Braman, Todd Chilton & John McEnroe

Presented by Gallery of Contemporary Art at UCCS at University of Colorado Gallery of Contemporary Art

December 14, 2007-February 9, 2008

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Sarah Braman (NYC), Todd Chilton (Chicago), and John McEnroe (Denver) are a select group of contemporary artists whose work continues the distinct trajectory of late Modernist painting. During the 1950's, 60's, and 70's painting was being boiled down to its essence - its consistency, color, and a flat support on which to place the paint. Artists were abandoning representational subject matter in favor dripping paint, color fields, and geometric abstraction. Paint was no longer expected to look like a tree or a person or a house. Paint was free to just be paint. Each of the artists in Young Moderns utilize the theory and techniques of late Modernist painting in their work whether it technically be painting or not. Sarah Braman's sculptural work utilizes cardboard, Plexiglas, and ply-wood in a way that emphasizes the flatness that was encouraged in late Modernist work. She places multiple supports together at various angles to create sculptures whose surfaces are treated as paintings. Todd Chilton's pared down subject matter and use of geometric forms is akin to the work of Frank Stella or Kenneth Noland. Chilton abstractions does not try to hide the fact that a human hand made his paintings. His lines are crooked and the paint drips, bestowing his paintings with a wry sense of humor that winks at history while creating new forms with the tools history gave him. Chilton has said, "I do think it could be useful to look at my work in the context of that moment in the history of abstraction if only to see that it functions with an awareness of its history. I think that I make historically aware paintings that are of their own time." As his predecessors were concerned with stripping painting of all unnecessary elements, John McEnroe's work is stripped of all but paint. McEnroe pours and drips paint across a large slab, waits for the paint to dry, and then peels the paint from the slab. These "paintings" look like curtains or skinned beasts that hover somewhere between a painting and a sculpture as the sheets of paint ripple against the wall and drape over hooks and bolts. These three "painters" acknowledge the influence of late Modernist painting, use that influence as a tool, and stride ahead with new ideas to create smart, fantastic work.