Art in America, September 2005 by Melissa E. Feldman
Rick Arnitz at Stephen Wirtz
A gallery regular for the last 16 years and a Bay Area resident who rarely shows outside California, Rick Arnitz offers a unique blend of abstraction that is informed by both Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, but which ultimately remains nondenominational. Arnitz handles with ease the grand scale he seems to prefer. His mainly two-or three-tone, allover canvases range from tight checkerboards in black with white, turquoise or red, to compositions using horizontal or vertical stripes in sequences of alternating color.
In a hands-off approach akin to Gerhard Richter's squeegeed abstractions and Callum Innes's poured ones, Arnitz applies oil enamel house paint with rollers. The results, however, are not nearly as neat and tidy as one would expect from these efficient means, as Arnitz rolls and rerolls his allover patterns to the point of double vision and bleeding paint.
Until the last few years, Arnitz's work was more methodical, featuring sharp edges, shallow space and a somewhat rote feel. But with this show's 11 canvases (all but one from 2004), the scales were tipped toward the gestural. The patterns have become denser, the surfaces more heavily worked and less controlled. In Sight It Must Be Right, a tall and narrow 90-by-50-inch canvas in mottled red and white stripes, looks like a bandaged torso with red paint bleeding through. In the towering Who Won What, When, & Where, reminiscent of Louise Nevelson's monochromatic reliefs with their niches of uncertain depth, the black and white crosshatching gets so sloppy the color turns ashen.
When paired with one of Arnitz's sidelong titles, often psychological or political in tone, the regimented imagery becomes allusive. For example, the very large You Are Free To Go seems ironic given the ocean of checkered turquoise and black it presents. The title Playground undercuts a black and blue painting's somber elegance. In other cases, a clever title is not quite enough to enliven Arnitz's more repetitive compositions.
The most intriguing piece was Vibes. Here, a square curtain of slightly tilted gray stripes hovers, Rothko-like, from just below the top of a larger, bluish-white rectangular background that it nearly fills. The striped portion looks three-dimensional, as if at any moment it might lift off the canvas. It's an example of Arnitz pushing abstract opticality into the realm of trompe l'oeil.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
Rick Arnitz at Stephen Wirtz
A gallery regular for the last 16 years and a Bay Area resident who rarely shows outside California, Rick Arnitz offers a unique blend of abstraction that is informed by both Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, but which ultimately remains nondenominational. Arnitz handles with ease the grand scale he seems to prefer. His mainly two-or three-tone, allover canvases range from tight checkerboards in black with white, turquoise or red, to compositions using horizontal or vertical stripes in sequences of alternating color.
In a hands-off approach akin to Gerhard Richter's squeegeed abstractions and Callum Innes's poured ones, Arnitz applies oil enamel house paint with rollers. The results, however, are not nearly as neat and tidy as one would expect from these efficient means, as Arnitz rolls and rerolls his allover patterns to the point of double vision and bleeding paint.
Until the last few years, Arnitz's work was more methodical, featuring sharp edges, shallow space and a somewhat rote feel. But with this show's 11 canvases (all but one from 2004), the scales were tipped toward the gestural. The patterns have become denser, the surfaces more heavily worked and less controlled. In Sight It Must Be Right, a tall and narrow 90-by-50-inch canvas in mottled red and white stripes, looks like a bandaged torso with red paint bleeding through. In the towering Who Won What, When, & Where, reminiscent of Louise Nevelson's monochromatic reliefs with their niches of uncertain depth, the black and white crosshatching gets so sloppy the color turns ashen.
When paired with one of Arnitz's sidelong titles, often psychological or political in tone, the regimented imagery becomes allusive. For example, the very large You Are Free To Go seems ironic given the ocean of checkered turquoise and black it presents. The title Playground undercuts a black and blue painting's somber elegance. In other cases, a clever title is not quite enough to enliven Arnitz's more repetitive compositions.
The most intriguing piece was Vibes. Here, a square curtain of slightly tilted gray stripes hovers, Rothko-like, from just below the top of a larger, bluish-white rectangular background that it nearly fills. The striped portion looks three-dimensional, as if at any moment it might lift off the canvas. It's an example of Arnitz pushing abstract opticality into the realm of trompe l'oeil.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.