Theatrical

“I see a theatricality in the new paintings, which comes from a number of things, for example, the grandness of opera. There’s, of course, an operatic tradition of painting; the works in San Rocco and many other scuolas and churches have this drama, and it’s like theater. So there’s a rising, celestial grandness in all these paintings. I’ve always loved Titian and Tintoretto, but I tended to like the Titians that were much more reserved like the ones I saw at the National Gallery in London and the Prado in Madrid, particularly “The Deposition,” and also the “Pieta.” I thought those paintings were the most sublime. But being in Venice, I became involved in a whole other layer of his work as well as the work of Giorgione, Tintoretto, Veronese.” Louise Fishman in conversation with Sharon Butler, Brooklyn Rail, October 4, 2012.

Louise Fishman is a not-so-underground legend among New York Mannerist painters. Fishman took the American Modernist era strung it out and re-formed it throughout the fin de siècle. Her Abstract Mannerism hangs onto Greenberg’s surfaces while pushing the “10th Street Touch” aside using a nuanced process, melting grids and imagistic color. 

“Her aim was to reinvigorate the medium of painting—which at that time had been declared dead—through the addition of a strong female perspective. This new series of works, while abstract, shows Fishman exploring her visual vocabulary with tremendous confidence. “My intention, always, was to not repeat a painting, was to not repeat aspects of paintings,” Fishman said in a statement featured in the show press release. “My intention in painting is to keep discovering and to keep changing.” That is the hallmark of Fishman’s work: her ability to capture, through classical abstraction, the joy of reinvention.” Louise Fishman reviewed by Henri Neuendorf, Artnet, October 3, 2017.