Interviews From Yale Radio / Artists, Curators And More

phot of the artist by Ralph Gabriner Dena Schutzer in her fifth solo show at Bowery Gallery in New York City titled “Agitation and Retreat”, describes the work saying, “Together, these oil paintings are a chronicle of observed moments in public and private spaces.” Schutzer’s imagery reflects this wide-open approach—what has caught her eye ranges from a view of a New York street in the giant shadows of looming new skyscrapers, to an intimate scene of the artist’s elderly mother taking a bath. Intuiting a kind of drama in these elements of direct perception provides what Schutzer calls the “initial jolt” that impels her to respond in paint. For Schutzer this mysterious process—the joy and struggle of proceeding from that first sensation to a new, composed reality on the canvas--has everything to do with her pleasure in the possibilities of paint itself.  Her loose but decisive brushwork and bold color tensions and harmonies—acid greens, clashing blues, pervasive violets—don’t let go of the viewer until one h