164

Some things have not changed. As with all past issues, you will find the work of forty exceptional artists in these pages, along with information relevant to their respective practices.

What has changed is in the presentation. In the interest of making New American Paintings more dynamic and curatorially engaged, artist spreads are no longer constrained to the orderly rhythm of four pages with set image sizes. In a world dominated by the screen, we wanted to make the magazine more visually stimulating, more fun, and ultimately, more informative for our readership. I want to give my deepest thanks to Alexandra Simpson, who led our redesign effort, and to Liz Morlock for all of her insight along the journey. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished.

Those of you who have been following New American Paintings over the years will also notice the return of our editorial feature, titled Spotlight. We are thrilled that so many of our alumni have gone on to become internationally recognized artists, and Spotlight is a chance to take a more in-depth look at some of them. In this issue, we focus on the work of Robin Francesca Williams. I first encountered Robin’s paintings more than a decade ago at P.P.O.W and I count her among the most significant artists working today. In these pages, writer and editor Michael Wilson provides an incisive look at Robin’s career and practice.

The juror for Issue #164 of New American Paintings was Leila Grothe, Associate Curator…

16 Painters today are trying to deal. They respond to a near constant crush of crises, swinging from economic to ecological to sociopolitical, knowing all the while how closely each of these collapsing pressures connects. They are—and indeed the world is—recalibrating from a collective experience of the Covid-19 pandemic. Society often turns to art when attempting to make sense of the incomprehensible. Now is our moment to reflect on the isolation, fear, gratitude, injustice, division, and alternative connection that we have developed in relation to a changed world. There’s no need to explain; we have all had front row seats to this transfiguration. Nonetheless, acknowledging that we’ve experienced such a profound rupture in our lived experiences and understanding the impact are entirely different phenomena. We lean on artists to identify the nucleus of our time, exposing the roots of circumstance so that we might improve upon that which came before us.

The selections in this edition of New American Paintings showcase the ways in which artists have anchored themselves as we transition from darkness to light. Painting takes time. Every mark is a decision, whether it be the imprint and twist of a brush or the speed and angle of a gesture. It could be surface accumulation or material removal, the density of paint in each stroke, the cohesion of a color palette, or the coherence of illusion. The finished works in this issue characterize the past few years in the studio for many of the artists represented.

Painting has…