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Driscoll Babcock Galleries is pleased to present, Drop Dead Gorgeous, the latest
body of work by Marylyn Dintenfass, whose brilliant chromatic abstractions evolve to
evoke a representational narrative about natureʼs fatally duplicitous markers. Dintenfassʼ
work has always embodied the unease of “nothing is ever what is seems” in life and her
newest canvases draw their inspiration from some of natureʼs most beautiful, but
dangerous plants. A focus of the show is the Angelʼs Trumpet flower, a ravishing and
singular beauty whose exquisite deadliness is iconic. Dintenfassʼ vibrant abstractions of
the Angel Trumpetʼs shapes and forms conjure the plantʼs stunning looks, its siren-like
allure, and its toxicity.
“Dintenfassʼ latest work reaffirms her position as a significant figure in the rich tradition of
colorists who explore the potent and evocative union of representation and abstraction:
figures like James Turrell, Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Rothko, Morris Louis, Paul Klee,
Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin, all of whom she continues to respect,” remarks John
Driscoll, President of Driscoll Babcock. Driscoll also pointed to the paintingsʼ, “more
overtly sexual and sensual anatomical references, in which the sinister flower forms
conjure genital appendages and vaginal slits in pulsing colors.”
Critic Lilly Wei has written that Dintenfassʼ painting is “[l]ush but also astringent, with a
glittered coolness and reserve that offsets its heat…a bracing example of an experiential
painting for the present.” In this remarkable group of new large scale paintings,
Dintenfass has surely found the duality of the lush and the astringent, and the tantalizing
and the toxic.
Dintenfass, while not an avid outdoors person, loves extreme wilderness adventures as
a visual and creative reboot from art fairs, art galleries and museums: a way to
“completely drain my visual reservoirs of everything extraneous and fill my senses with
fresh colors, shapes and forms, textures, light and shadows that renew and reenergize my creative vision.” Riding the pounding rapids of the Snake River, heli-hiking on the
remote mountains of British Columbia, or trekking the depths of Bryce Canyon,
Dintenfass recognizes the peril of chance encounters with venomous snakes, predatory
animals and toxic plants. “Otherwise” she says, “the best interaction with nature is
through a plate glass window.” Dintenfass emphasizes that in Drop Dead Gorgeous,
the lithe and beautiful plants that are her subject wonʼt just make you sick, “they are
lethal, they kill you.”
As in her previous work, Drop Dead Gorgeous evokes highly layered literal and
ephemeral interpretations, reinforced by her method of paint application and removal,
where she unites hardedge painting with soft brushstrokes. Her transparent layers of oil
paint and the luminescence she achieves from her highly nuanced mixing of colors
navigate a gestural relationship between light, line, and chroma. Dintenfass has always
loved the interplay of blessings and curses, and in this new series of paintings, including
diptychs and triptychs, she has increased the scale, heightened the intensity and
simplified the visual layering to produce a powerful visual wallop!
ABOUT MARYLYN DINTENFASS
Marylyn Dintenfass is an internationally known artist whose work is found in major
public, corporate and private collections in Denmark, England, Israel, Italy, Japan and
the United States. Among the institutions that have acquired her work are: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts,
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Mississippi Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of
Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her 2010 Parallel Park installation in
Fort Myers, Florida is one of the largest and most noteworthy public art projects of the
last decade. A two-time MacDowell Fellow, Dintenfassʼ work has been widely reviewed
and her 2011 Babcock Galleries exhibition was selected as one of the top 100 shows by
Modern Painters.
ABOUT JOHN DRISCOLL
John Driscoll, PH.D, is a scholar, collector, and art dealer based in New York City. He
has owned Driscoll Babcock Galleries since 1987, and has previously held professional
appointments at the Palmer Museum of Art, William H. Lane Foundation, Worcester Art
Museum, Yale University and New York University. Driscoll has written extensively on
American art, is directing the John F. Kensett Catalogue Raisonné Project, and has
been the curator, co-curator or a contributor to exhibitions that have traveled to more
than twenty leading museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the
National Academy of Design, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of
Art. He has championed the careers of John Kensett, Marsden Hartley, Ambrose
Webster, Charles Sheeler, Edwin Dickinson, Don Nice and Alan Gussow. Driscoll
serves on the Advisory Board of the Palmer Museum of Art, the board of the Hudson
Valley Center for Contemporary Art and on the Visiting Committee, Department of
Drawings and Prints, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ABOUT DRISCOLL BABCOCK GALLERIES
Driscoll Babcock Galleries, founded in 1852 by John Snedecor, is the oldest gallery in
New York City, and the nationʼs oldest gallery, which from its inception, has focused on
American art. During Dr. Driscollʼs tenure, the gallery has helped to secure numerous
prized works for major private collectors and museums across the country including the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian
American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, all in Washington, D.C.; The
Cleveland Museum, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Greenville
County Museum of Art, South Carolina; Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville
Arkansas; The Kemper in Kansas City, The Museum of Fine Arts-Houston and dozens
of other museums.
www.driscollbabcock.com
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