Water Flames Exhibit has been selected on Terry Teachout’s top five list.
GALLERY: Makoto Fujimura, Water Flames (Sara Tecchia Roma New York, 529 W. 20, up through Oct. 23). An exceptionally handsome new Chelsea gallery opens its doors with a show of large-scale paintings on paper inspired by a line borrowed by T.S. Eliot from Dante’s Divine Comedy: “The fire and the rose are one.” In these spacious, intensely colored visualizations of the essence of fire, Makoto Fujimura fuses Pollock-like pigment-dripping with medieval Japanese painting techniques. The results are at once spectacular in their immediate effect and unexpectedly intimate in the spell they cast on the attentive viewer. Be sure to take a look at the short documentary film in which Fujimura demonstrates how these works were created—and don’t overlook the smaller paintings hanging in the offices just off the main gallery (TT).
Exhibit continues until 10/22…