Fran Shalom: Just This

exhibition dates: April 22 - May 17, 2014

reception: Thursday, April 24, 6 - 8 pm

The Painting Center presents Just This a solo exhibition of paintings by Fran Shalom. From the catalogue essay written by Nancy Shaver:

"Fran Shalom uses shape to contradict itself, to confuse the viewer’s eye and mind. Her use of shape is an uneasy amalgam of cartoonish, somewhat figurative forms and minimalist clarity. My eye addresses her work, caught between remembered references to cartoons and the more abstract pleasures in the shapes of an Ellsworth Kelly painting. The color Fran Shalom uses is not coded. It feels deeply considered and specific. Her color is both pleasing and irritating: it displays light and dark. Her color holds shape and relationship, and is a workhorse. It often appears brilliant. Assured shapes are layered on top of failures, those earlier versions that became extinct for the sake of the present painting. But her failures are never completely denied; instead they become part of her paintings’ textures, and they hold light. Her layered grounds vie with the top-most shapes, sensually refusing the position of background." Fran Shalom lives and works in Jersey City, NJ. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is included in numerous private and public collections. Visit www.franshalom.com

View Catalogue: Shalom Catalogue.pdf