NAP News

November 23, 2015, 9:18am

Museum Admission: Brenna Youngblood at the Seattle Art Museum

When I walked into Brenna Youngblood’s (NAP #103) abstracted realities, at the Seattle Art Museum, I thought this would be a show about its painted subjects.  The eight works’ contents—an oversized “x”, a confetti of dollar-bill signs, a dripping map, a Chuck Taylor sole atop a pyramid—held so much depth on their own.  Knowing her also to be an artist whose practice extends to mediums rooted in physical objects, including sculpture, collage, assemblage, and photography, objects at first seemed to be the heart of the matters here. — Erin Langner, Seattle Contributor

Chuck Taylor, 2015, Brenna Youngblood, American, b. 1979, color photograph
and acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Honor Fraser Gallery.

April 08, 2015, 2:56pm

NAP Midwest Edition Exhibition at the Elmhurst Art Museum

For more than twenty years, the critically acclaimed publication, New American Paintings, has featured the work of more than 3000 painters from throughout the United States, many of whom have gone on to receive international recognition. A lavishly-illustrated exhibition-in-print, each issue of New American Paintings results from a highly selective juried competition and aims to share the work of deserving artists to a wider audience. Selected by Elmhurst Art Museum Chief Curator Staci Boris from more than 400 submissions, the 2014 Midwest Edition features forty of the most promising artists from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio and Iowa working within the context of contemporary painting. For the first time in its history, the New American Paintings publication will jump from the page to the museum as EAM presents the exhibition New American Paintings: Midwest Edition.

Exhibition Dates:
May 17 - August 23, 2015

Click here to see the complete list of exhibiting artists.

Allison Reiums | Circle Drip, 2014. Oil and Gold Leaf on Linen.

December 19, 2014, 4:20pm

VOTE NOW! NAP ANNUAL PRIZE: 2014 READER’S CHOICE POLL

From thousands to one…In 2014 our jurors reviewed the work of more than 20,000 individual works of art by more than 5000 artists. Our jurors have the impossible task of selecting the 240 artists to be featured in New American Paintings. Of those artists, twelve (two from each issue) were distinguished as being “Noteworthy.”

Well, now it is your opportunity to help us turn 12 artists into 1. Below, you will find 2014’s twelve Noteworthy artists listed, along with an image and brief commentary. One of these 12 artists will be named the New American Paintings Artist of the Year! In addition to being featured again in our 2015 June/July issue, the winner of the Reader’s Choice Annual Prize will receive a cash prize of $500 and a $1,000 Blick Art Materials gift certificate sponsored by:

Cast your vote by Sunday January 18 (Midnight EST). The winner of the Reader’s Choice poll will be announced on Wednesday, January 21st.

We want to thank all of the artists who trusted us with their work in 2014. One vote per person will be counted!

Learn more about each artist after the jump!

March 04, 2014, 9:05am

Past Featured NAP Artists at VOLTA NY 2014

One of the privileges of working for a contemporary art fair whose focus is solo-artist projects is the opportunity to see a range of works by artists from all over, be they from Bushwick or Berlin. This could mean their newest series or a multiyear survey of their oeuvre, sort of like a mini retrospective staged within their exhibiting gallery's booth. 

View more shots from VOLTA NY 2013 by clicking here.

As in years past, VOLTA NY features a plethora of artists working with paint. The range is fantastic, and I think indicative of contemporary trends within the medium: angular figures and aggressively colorful compositions in a New Objectivity vein from very young, non-German artists including Anna Navasardian (Armenian but New York-based, showing with Galerie Andreas Binder, Munich) and Pawel Sliwinski (Polish, showing with Beers Contemporary, London); representational works in thick, gestural impasto, both in Kim Dorland's grand, en plein air style (Angell Gallery, Toronto), and in Bobby Mathieson's intimately scaled portraiture (Lyons Wier Gallery, New York); and abstraction both super-reductive (like Clare Grill, showing with FRED.GIAMPIETRO, New Haven) and cosmically colorful (Jennifer Lefort, showing with Patrick Mikhail Contemporary, Ottawa); plus every conceivable style in between. - Brian Fee, Austin Contributor