April 11 – May 11, 2024
Echoes of Frank Stella, with allusions to curvilinear paintings by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, brought abstraction from the modern into our contemporary era.
Artist Chukwuemeka Anthony Chukwu presented new works in his second show ever with VillageOneArt, Mercurial. This solo exhibition incorporated artworks that embraced painterly swaths of jewel-toned hues expanding across rounded compositions on panel: abstract, lyrical and, at times, haunting. Echoes of Frank Stella, with allusions to curvilinear paintings by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark, brought abstraction from the modern into our contemporary era. For this, the artist’s second ever solo show with the gallery, he offered up a sophisticated and organic approach to abstraction. Intertwined curved lines exhibiting the mark of the brush spanned melodically across the picture plane. In creating these hovering, tightly constructed compositions, Chukwu outlined a new, contemporaneous direction for painterly abstraction.
Combining loose brushstrokes and incisive approaches to geometric abstraction, the artist employed a precise strategy in delineating marks across the canvas. Chukwu embraced bold, uncompromising approaches to color and line, impacted by careful attention to simple forms interacting with one another. With the addition of detailed marks augmenting the larger, bolder aspects of the geo-abstract composition, the artist indicated a maturity of painterly acumen, drawing lines not only across the canvas, but also linking disparate disciplines, spanning architecture, mathematical codes and formulae, and even physics. Mercurial brought new aspects of abstraction to bear, titillating the viewer’s imagination.
Works in the Exhibition
Mercurial was on view at VillageOneArt, 150 West 25th Street, Suite 403, New York, from April 11 to May 11, 2024. For inquiries regarding available works by Chukwuemeka Anthony Chukwu, please contact info@villageoneart.com.