"A Painting Trifecta"

Janet Kurnatowski, 31 Grand, Sideshow
2006-04-01

East side, West side, all around the ‘burg painting is breaking out like spring-blossoms. In the East, Ben La Rocco questions the whole premise of paintings and paint on canvas by cutting holes, hanging them facing the wall, up at ceiling level, even hanging a painting on the back of another painting, at Galeria Janet Kurnatowski. Down West, 31 Grand presents the sensuous paintings of Mike Cockrill. Their sensuality is not just reflected in the adolescent fantasies of the dreamy young girls observed by leering foxes, but in the rich brush work and unexpected color harmonies Cockrill employs. Back on Bedford, Rachel Youens depicts still-lives of bread, with a tonally nuanced palette that brings a sense of the surreal to these table-top views of the staff of life, and Victor Pesce’s elegantly simple pictures of boxes, bowls and bags carry an updated echo of the silent world of Giorgio Morandi at Sideshow

—James Kalm