The Brooklyn Rail on Denise Green's biography
Christof Trepesch’s chapter in Denise Green: An Artist’s Odyssey, a collection of essays on the career of the eponymous Australian-born, New York-based painter, opens with an emphatic assertion on the importance of color in the artist’s work. Trepesch states: “its rich spectrum and diversity permeates her entire oeuvre and informs the compositions of her paintings in a transcendent way.” Green’s use of color is indeed a striking part of her largely abstract, New Imagist paintings. So it’s surprising that, save for an occasional black-and-white reproduction, images of the work are scarce. It would stand to reason if this book were based around contextual and conceptual themes. But Green, despite having had quite a presence in the Lower Manhattan art scene during the 1970s and 1980s, and having made a concerted and successful effort to constantly exhibit in Australia, is largely absent from mention in either of these recent histories. So taken altogether this book attempts a big stretch, acting as a chronicle of her career, theoretical examination, and introduction all at once.
By: Juliet Helmke
Story Date: 2012-10-08T00:00:00