Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to open the fall art season with two new exhibitions.
The exhibition in gallery I focuses on large-scale abstract paintings by Yolanda Sánchez and Don Swanson. Yolanda Sánchez and Don Swanson come together in a commanding exhibition highlighting the enduring power of pure abstraction. Soulful expressions of joy and the love of oil paint and process take form in the paintings of these mature and masterful artists.
Yolanda Sánchez is a gifted colorist in the tradition of great artists such as Matisse, Bonnard and Mitchell. Sánchez’s paintings are balanced in the moment of stillness between breaths; strokes of vibrant color pulse, rest, and dance on a pure white field. In her words: “Making art for me is a way of being present in the world; it is an act of attention. And through this attention, I give back and offer praise to the world. … I am holding a space for the viewer – to enter, to be there, to have a moment of contemplation, and to finish the work, as it were…. There is no story to be told, just simply a desire to awaken”. Cuban born artist Yolanda Sánchez grew up in Miami. Among her many distinctions, Yolanda Sánchez is a Fulbright scholar and holds an MFA from Yale University School of Art. The artist exhibits extensively in the United States and in Korea and Italy. This is her fifth show with the gallery, who has represented the artist since 2009.
Don Swanson, in his debut exhibition with the gallery, contributes five large oil paintings on linen. Swanson’s multiple layers of opaque pigment and veils of oil glazes explore the implication and relationship of colors; both the harmony and the slight tension that planned discord between colors creates. The ambiguous, yet temptingly familiar, shapes are expertly placed and push the pictorial space from foreground to receding background and back again variously. The dialogue between viewer and artwork is one of discovery and Swanson thoughtfully coaxes us into a very rewarding conversation. Swanson’s deep immersion in visual art and scholarship include not only painting but graphic design, fine art conservation, font design, book design and calligraphy, to name a few.
