Gudrun Mertes-Frady

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Gudrun Mertes-Frady

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WHERE THINGS BEGIN 2012, 60x63 inches
Oil and metallic pigments on canvas

More images: www.artnews.org/gudrunmertesfrady

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DIE WELT BERLIN-GERMANY, 13. November 2009

GUDRUN MERTES-FRADY bei MAUD PIQUION

Dass abstrakte Kunst nicht langweilen muss, beweisen die ausgefeilten
Gemälde von Gudrun Mertes-Frady. Sie zeigen geometrische Strukturen
und scimmern, je nach Standort des Betrachters, unterschiedlich. Die Künstlerin
hat verschiedene dünne Schichten aufgetragen und metallische Pigmente wie
Aluminium und Graphit verwendet. Das changierende Material verleiht ihrem
COOL PLAY, Leben.

......Die Ausstellung DAY FOR NIGHT zeigt die zwei Gesichter ihres Könnens.
Auf der einen Seite die ruhige Zen-Wirkung der abgezirkelten Linien und
geometrische Formen. Sie steht im Kontrast zur Lebenigkeit des Materials auf
der anderen Seite. Die reflektierenden Farben lassen den Blick in den
SMALL MIRROR oder auf das SINGULAR LIGHT zum Blick in die Tiefe
werden.

Andrea Hilgenstock

MAUD PIQUION & PARTNER BERLIN 2009

Es wird Zeit, über das Tempo von Bildern nachzudenken. Die schnellen kennt man, das Neueste vom Tage, aus der Hüfte geschossen. Das Museum Morsbroich in Leverkusen widmet sich Ende November dem anderen Phänomen der „Slow Paintings“. Neue Wilde, Jonathan Meese oder André Butzer, passen nicht ins Thema. Aber Gudrun Mertes-Frady vielleicht, nur wurde sie nicht gefragt. Ihre Bilder sind in der Galerie Maud Piquion zu sehen (Preise auf Anfrage). In Köln geboren, hat Mertes-Frady sich mit New York nicht gerade die schläfrigste Stadt als Lebensmittelpunkt ausgesucht. Allerdings transformiert die abstrakte Malerin den Metropolenrummel zum inwendigen Schillern, das sie mit Farbschichtungen und metallischen Pigmenten erzielt. Indem sie ihre Gemälde je nach Betrachterstandpunkt die „Identität“ wechseln lässt, verhindert die Künstlerin tatsächlich, dass man ihr Werk allzuschnell abhakt.

Jens Hindrichsen
Nov. 7. 2009

- Having appeared in various guises throughout Gudrun Mertes-Frady's career, the grid has become her muse. ....By bringing the bold matrix and subtle background together, Mertes-Frady succeeds in creating a new dimension that makes each work ebb and flow.

Constance Wynham
ARTnews 2007

- Gudrun Mertes-Frady is no longer an artist to whom one politely pays attention: she’s become an artist to get excited about…..The two best canvasses, concentrate the city: its skyline, its light, the abrupt juxtapositions that define it and that stately calm that brings us up short.

Mario Naves
THE NEW YORK OBSERVER 2003

- Gudrun Mertes-Frady’s commitment to the material pleasure of paint and the expanded vocabulary of formal interests have recently resulted in a remarkable change. In the context of her previous work, these successful paintings are a sufficient radical turn that the artist’s signature concerns are identifiable more in the handling of the paint than in the constitution of the grid.

In Shift to Myth, 68 X 72 in., one of the largest and most hauntingly electric of these paintings, the pale slate-grey and white circuit patterns present, to near hallucinary effect, a glow sufficiently deep to recall the lustrous appearance of encaustic.

Edward Leffingwell
ART IN AMERICA 2004

- Painter Gudrun Mertes-Frady’s recent gridlike formats tease forth nuanced and subtle shifts of light, color, and line ….. In the larger works, such as Shift To Myth and Blue Surround, there was a terrific buoyancy, as though the grid might lift off the picture plane at any moment…….at their best, they proved how much room there is for ingenuity and invention in this particular realm of pure abstraction.

Ann Landi
ARTnews 2003

- Her most recent work continues to radiate a light…..an illumination that is almost seasonal, from reticence of a pale wintry day to the glow of spring, the glare of summer to more sombre casts, the sensation shifting from a crystalline delicacy to a slow sonorous rumble….There is also what lies beneath, which comes up like pentimenti: the paintings’ history, genealogy, archaeology, traces that are both process and poetics.

Lilly Wei
Catalogue essay 2002

….Mertes-Frady tracks the encompassing comfort of a community presently absent, and an original state of being. In perfect tune with a condition of our Western mind today, the artist asks basic questions with no answers. Her secular art seeks the sacred, where an acrid self, fragmented in structure and attenuated in tone, hopes for an absolute.

Arlene Raven
Catalogue essay 2000

STATEMENT - 2009

As a timeless organizing principle, geometry is the underlying matrix or architecture of all my work. I am drawn to its symmetry and quasi-symmetry and the limitless potential to create my own world.

My work is about clarity and structure, pared down to essential forms. In my recent paintings, I use metallic pigments, like aluminum and graphite. I also use mica particles mixed with my colors to affect a kinetic quality of illusory motion depending from which angle the work is seen.

Some of the mica particles are coated with highly refractive titanium oxide, producing a dual effect when viewed from different sides. Combination with other colors results in the interference of light waves.

I’m very interested to explore physical fact and psychic affect of color and form with this process. I work toward the instant the painting has its own center, its own logic, physically and intellectually. Most of all I want my work to be about deceleration, in the spirit of the works by Olafur Eliasson and the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, as a counter point to the ever accelerating whirl of our time, in which our lives seem trapped.

There is one more thing of importance to me: I’m going blatantly for a sense of beauty.

Gudrun Mertes-Frady
New York - 2009

Gudrun Mertes-Frady

Born in Cologne, Germany

Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

Solo Exhibitions

2010 Maud Piquion & Partner, Weimar, Gemany
2009 Maud Piquion & Partner, Berlin, Germany
2009 Cynthia-Reeves, New York, NY
2007 Spheris Gallery, Hanover, NH
2007 Reeves Contemporary, New York, NY
2005 Reeves Contemporary, New York, NY
2003 Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
2002 Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
1999 Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
1997 Rosenberg+kaufman Fine Art, new York, NY
1995 Rosenberg+Kaufman Fibe Art, New York, NY
1994 Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
1991 Galerie Lommel, Cologne-Leverkusen, Germany
1988 Galerie Lommel, Cologne-Leverkusen, Germany

Group Exhibitions

2012 "Paper Bands",Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, NY
2012 Kentler International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
2012 “Mic : Check”, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Mark Wolf Contemporary, San Francisco, CA,
2011 “Divergent Affinities”, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Kentler Internation Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Art-Karlsruhe, Germany
2009 Art-Chicago, ILL
2008 James Cohan Gallery, Nuture Art Benefit, New York, NY
2008 80 Washington Square Galleries, Small Works, New York, NY
2007 "The Grid", Reeves-Contemporary, New York, NY
2003 A COMMON THREAD, Hennepin County Center, Saint Paul, Minnesota
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, Les Recontes d'Arles, Arles, France
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, Martin Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, Chicago Cultural Center,Chicago, IL
2002 HERE IS NEW YORK, University of California, Berkeley, CA
2001 SYNOPSIS, Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
2001 ART 2001, E1 Gallery, London, England
2000 SUNSIGNS, Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, New York, NY
1996 ART INITIATIVE, New York, NY
1993 SUMMER SOLSTICE, Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
1993 THE TENTH SUMMER. Stephen Rosenberg Gallery, New York, NY
1992 NY PAINTING, Artspace, New york, NY
1992 WERNER KRAMARSKY COLLECTION, New York, NY
1991 COMPULSION, Jamison-Thomas Gallery, New York, NY
1990 Stark Gallery, New York, NY
1990 PAINTING 1990, The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
1989 SELECTION 47, The Drawing Center, New York, NY

Collections

The Busch Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Collection American Embassy, Dubai, UAE
The Rockefeller University, New York, NY
Werner Kramarsky Collection, New York, NY
Universal Music Collection, London, England
Cohen&Lord Collection, Santa Monica, CA
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, Minneapolis, MN
Collection American Embassy in Dubai, UAE
Collection at Coventry, Fort Washington, PA
Kurt Solomon Associates International
Princess Cruise Lines Los Angeles, CA (Commission)
Thomas Weisel Partners, San Fransisco, CA

Bibliography

2009 Der Tagesspiegel, Jens Hindrichsen, Berlin, Gemany, Dez.9
2009 Die Welt, Andea Hilgenstock, Germany, Nov. 17
2009 ART, Claudia Bodin, March 18
2007 ARTnews,NYC, Constance Wyndham, review, July
2007 Mario Naves, Catalogue Essay, Reeves Contemporay
2004 Art in America, NYC, Edward Leffingwell, May, p. 160
2003 ARTnews, NYC, Ann Landi, December, p. 120
2003 New York Observer, Mario Naves, October 6, p.20
2002 Lilly Wei, Catalogue Essay, Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, NYC
2000 The New York Times, Ken Johnson, November 3
2000 Joseph Wallentini, Abstract-Art-On-Line, New York, NY, November
1999 Joseph Wallentini. Artist Profile, Anstract-Art-On-Line, NYC
1997 Lissa McLure, Review Magazine, New York, NY
1996 Arlene Raven, Catalogue Essay, Rosenberg+Kaufman Fine Art, NYC

Links

http://www.geoform.net/features/features_mertes-frady.html

Gudrun Mertes-Frady

Gudrun Mertes-Frady
Brooklyn, New York
USA

mertesfrady@mindspring.com