Nature Morte
Seren Morey and Lisa Petker Mintz at The Painting Center
Installation view, Beyond the Sun, solo show by Lisa Petker Mintz. Image courtesy The Painting Center.
Themes of the natural world infuse artworks on view throughout The Painting Center in two solo presentations by artists Lisa Petker Mintz and Seren Morey. In Beyond the Sun, Petker Mintz presents vibrant hues blended across pattern, line and curvilinear elements in her mid- to large-scale paintings on view. Into the Aether, a solo show by Seren Morey in the center’s project space, takes a more monochromatic look at the natural world and the life cycle that defines our experiences of it. Emerging to a New York City audience in Spring 2023, the timeline seems fitting we emerge out of a relative dearth of flora and fauna and into a jungle of abundant growth: an experience mimicked by exploring Morey’s subtle, delicate paintings before transitioning into the space filled with the bright and visually intricate paintings by Petker Mintz.
Seren Morey, Infinity Pools II, 2023, Ultralight acrylic, pigment dispersions, clay and thread on canvas. Image courtesy the artist.
Seren Morey’s artworks in Into the Aether probe materiality in ways delicate and fragile: a memento mori calling to mind the passage of time in our lives and the life cycle present in nature. Mimicking natural forms and presenting abstracted plant-like motifs intertwined and dispersed along intricate, thin armature-like wires, the artist presents undulating works in a range of scales. Morey’s works embrace simplicity and complexity in equal measure, inviting viewers to embark on a tactile and contemplative journey along monochromatic scales. Works such as Icarus Rising are presented at almost human scale, offering a visual feast of negative and positive space carved into an abstracted tree of life presented in grayscale. Rising from the darkness into the light, themes of life and death, darkness and light permeate Morey’s solo presentation.
Seren Morey, Icarus Rising, 2023, Ultralight acrylic, pigment dispersions and thread on canvas, 66x60x3 in.. Image courtesy the artist.
Into the Aether showcases Morey’s fascinating approach to surface texture, a careful process that she has cultivated and perfected over time. The repetitive nature of how these paintings are created calls to mind slow accumulation of new growth and the persistent pace of nature, season after season. By fine tuning each element across the picture plane, Morey is able to focus on the details, allowing the viewer to slow down and appreciate the subtle nuances embedded in these works.
Lisa Petker Mintz, A Whisper Can Be as Loud as a Scream, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in. Image courtesy the artist.
Beyond the Sun, a solo show of works by Petker Mintz, similarly presents a dizzying approach to visual texture in a mixed-media painting process allowing the viewer to slow down and digest works on view throughout the space. The interaction of these two exhibits by Morey and Petker Mintz and the viewer’s ability to traverse the space between these two solo shows makes for a refreshing opportunity to compare these two artist’s bodies of work with appreciation for each artist’s subtle process. Petker Mintz embraces line and division across the picture plane while allowing curvature and regions of complementary colors to intersperse across each composition. Infused with vivid colors, paintings such as A Whisper Can Be As Loud As a Scream embrace negative space as the opportunity to weave an airy and ethereal quality through the composition as a whole. Petker Mintz has a genius grasp of color gradients and the presence of line which informs the success of the exhibition as a whole.
Spring Into the Night may be the most forceful yet nuanced artwork in Petker Mintz’s Beyond the Sun. Embracing patterns and repetition, the overlay of swaths of color divided intuitively across the picture plane allows the viewer to come away from this painting with a new impression each time one encounters it. Abstract images in various jewel tones and hues seem to hover just before the eyes, blinking into view as one scans the composition as a whole. With Beyond the Sun, the artist launches into the outer reaches of what is possible with pigment, tone and layering.
Lisa Petker Mintz, Spring Into the Night, 2023. Printed paper and acrylic on canvas, 60 x 40 in. Image courtesy the artist.
Beyond the Sun — a solo show by Lisa Petker Mintz — and Into the Aether — a solo presentation by Seren Morey - were on view from April 24 to May 20, 2023 at The Painting Center. More info at www.thepaintingcenter.org
