Despite titling his show simply “Paintings,” Josiah McElheny has not abandoned his interested in architecture and design, nor his reliance on glass as a sculptural material. The gallery’s press release explains McElheny’s paintings’ rather complex relationship to the pioneering Swedish artist Hilma af Klint’s abstractions, as well as to famous works by artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Reinhardt. (Works by McElheny and af Klint were exhibited together in Stockholm in 2007.) And in fact, McElheny’s five “Crystalline Prism” paintings—prisms embedded into a matte black canvas—do look remarkably like stripped-down, prismatic translations of af Klint’s more colorful diagrammatic paintings. The show also includes several architectural wall-hung installation of cut blue glass and two animated projected landscapes in homage to filmmaker Maya Deren.
Pictured: Josiah McElheny: Crystalline Prism Painting II, 2015, oil paint on board, hand-formed press-molded polished glass, low-iron mirror, museum glass, oak, and Sumi ink, 30 by 29 by 6½ inches. Courtesy Andrea Rosen, New York © Josiah McElheny. Photo Ron Amstutz.