The single most popular exhibit this season so far, as enthusiastically expressed by my participants, was Patrick Hughes’ stunning 3D paintings – requiring no special glasses or electricity of any kind – that I showed on my Jan. 15 & 22 Chelsea tours, and has since closed. Likewise, Seth Wulsin’s layered spray paint works on my Jan. 29 Lower East Side tour were hugely popular. And on my Sat. Feb. 5 Skyscrapers gallery tour in Midtown, half of the shows we visit will be painting exhibits – all of them freshly made – including one at which the artist will be there to talk about his work. Yes, even with the rise of digital media, painting continues to THRIVE in New York’s galleries.

That is not to say that painting still dominates the contemporary art scene, as it did throughout much of civilization. Humanity’s earliest existing artworks are, after all, paintings of hunted animals in the Lascaux caves of southwestern France. Painting dominated European art from the Middle Ages through at least mid-20th century, and it was the primary art form in both China and Japan for centuries even longer than that. Only sculpture, which held sway over painting in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, and in Africa, could be said to be a match for painting with regard to prevalence in human culture.

Times have, of course, changed. Besides painting and sculpture, contemporary galleries now show photography, video art, computer art, fabric art, installation art, sound art, and more. In Chelsea, arguably the world’s most important and cutting-edge art neighborhood, painting now accounts for around 20 – 25% of the art shown. So while it no longer dominates – no one art medium does – painting still holds an important place in the contemporary art scene.

And there are two New York gallery neighborhoods – the Upper East Side and Midtown – where painting is shown in at least 50% of galleries at any one time. Therefore, when you attend one of my tours in those neighborhoods, you are likely to encounter a good deal more painting, than at say, a Chelsea or Lower East Side gallery tour.

Such is the case on my Skyscrapers gallery tour in Midtown on Sat. Feb. 5. At that event, artist Brian Ruttenberg will speak to our group to discuss his abstract works of thick multicolored paint. They are exuberant and joyous. We’ll also see a couple of examples of Ruttenberg’s earlier works that were more like landscapes, and then understand his transition towards abstraction.

A different exhibit on this tour will showcase an artist who takes a decidedly innovative approach to painting. He first constructs wooden compartments on canvas-sized structures, where the outlines of boats, houses, and volcanoes can be seen. Then, in lieu of a paintbrush, the artist pours a single color of enamel paint per compartment, rolls the frame around a little, and then lets the pools of paint dry. My favorite parts are the cracks that appear naturally during the drying process. The end result is gorgeously colorful and a bit cartoon-like.

One other painting exhibit we’ll visit is the work of a female artist whose works are often described as hallucinatory. She applies as many as 60 layers of alkyd paint (a type of oil paint) per canvas, and the final product is other-worldly. Her landscapes gleam as though there are lights embedded into the works. Indeed, her depiction of light within landscapes appears to be her central theme.

New participants on my gallery tours make the usually incorrect assumption that they will mostly be seeing painting. My Feb. 5 tour is one time where their hopes will be fulfilled.

Rafael Risemberg, Ph.D.
Founder and Director
New York Gallery Tours