portfolio: natalie a edwards

From my review:

“Smith’s pastel-primary-fluorescent paintings could pass for an acid-trip grandma’s precision-heavy quilt (if quilts were made of paper and gouache), or a petri-dish of magnified-pointillist bacteria (if bacteria were perfectly circular and extra psychedelic).”

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Excerpt from my feature on Art Talk Chicago:

“On one fall evening, year after year, Peoria street fills with Generation Google-Its in search of free booze and someone to flirt with. They ride the trolley to River North to feel alienated by the grown-up art in the spacious galleries. They are disappointed with the sparse selection of wine in plastic cups and mounds of sweaty cheese cubes atop wilted lettuce, and they quickly return to the West Loop. It is on this day of the year that they don their best duds: a sloppy boustier, perhaps, fashioned out of leather scraps. A skinned rodent pelt delicately placed atop a shaved head. A tuxedo. And it is on this day that they squeeze through corridors to make sense of the bold and sometimes baffling choices that our Chicago galleries make.”

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The most scathingest review I ever typed:

“Even though the pigeon is a pigeon, not the most sensual animal by any means, Austen appears to long for the bird’s affection, but is continually rejected. Austen often looks like his face is going to explode at the bird, and the mustardy, clumpy substance on his face reinforces that eruptive potential.”

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reviewy review:

“What looks like an arbitrary slapping together of stuff found in a basement dodges dumbness in the context of the space and mission of the project. The real payoff will be Johnson’s paintings, which should provide the viewer with a point of reference for interpreting Johnson’s macro and micro views of her arrangements. Johnson’s rabbit-themed heaps of meticulously placed detritus will be translated into carefully crafted, clean paintings to be unveiled at the show’s closing on November 22.”

read the rest. It ain’t long…

A bad show on a bad night:

“The world needs another review of the MCA’s birthday party, Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967, like I need another hole in my head, and for this I apologize. But every review I’ve read is boring and excruciatingly balanced. All the critics seem to say different variations of the same thing: “This show is kinda good and kinda bad. Happy birthday.” Why is everyone afraid to hurt the MCA’s feelings? Why is everyone not talking about the boring, stupid, shoe-gazing elephant in the room? I fear no art, as the MCA would say, and I also fear no art institution; I will say it: Sympathy for the Devil is like a huge, sorta pretentious, cold, burgerless, Aerosmithless Hard Rock Cafe.”

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Kind of mean of me:

“Bruce Noel Mortenson–like many contemporary artists–is a collector of arbitrary images: figures he makes up (like two-headed monsters), doodles (like you might find in a middle school students’ carefully considered spiral-bound notebook),  cultural icons (like the Rubik’s Cube), and the rare contemporary art references. Mortenson’s menagerie of congested, brightly colored compositions are easy to dismiss as decorative high-brow doodlery. The hippy-dippy, day-glo-synthetic swirlings of his paintings, combined with the pseudo-spiritual titles he gives them (the show is titled Journey into the Realm), don’t exactly encourage the viewer to take him seriously.”

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http://art.newcity.com/2008/11/10/review-for-every-occasionthrones-gallery/

From my review:

“The wall of the main gallery is covered with works on paper, plus a smattering of Jacob Goudreault’s tiny, blocky painting chunks. It can be difficult to figure out which pieces belong to which artist, but Geoffrey Hammerlink is impossible to miss. He owns the most real estate—his cartoony, elated pizza-man character beams from all over, whether he’s eating a slice, offering sex tips or carrying a replica of his own head around with his friends—proving that prolificacy pays off.”

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