WARREN ISENSEE
WARREN ISENSEE
511 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 515 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011
525 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011 520 West 21st Street New York NY 10011
THE DARING GEOMETRIES OF WARREN ISENSEE
By Charlotta KotikWarren Isensee is endlessly resourceful. Within the larger framework of geometric abstraction, with which his work is associated, he is a maverick of many surprises. Even when the formal elements of his work change profoundly, his brilliance of execution—whether we are confronted with a large canvas or a very small drawing— remains constant. This high regard for the physical part of creating an artwork has much to do with Isensee’s heritage. In conversation with Geoffrey Young in 2008 he stated: “Compositionally, I have always worked using classic modernist ideas with a spiritual twist. I grew up in the family of evangelicals who were also superb craftsmen. My grandfather built the family ranch from river rock, each rock placed precisely to create an organic and sturdy structure. My father crafted complex miniature parts for satellites. For me, the craft is inseparable from the expression, and the expression is visceral.”1
Warren’s family lived in a suburban Washington development build for returning Korean War veterans. This environment did not view becoming a musician or a visual artist very favorably—two of Warren’s main interests while growing up. But Warren’s father took painting lessons and ultimately signed up Warren for lessons as well. There was even a small studio space created for Warren to work on his drawings and to stash his comic books and scant art supplies. When Warren built a perfect model of the Taj Mahal from sugar cubes as a high school project, it looked as if a practical outlet for his artistic talents had been found: architectural studies.
Warren entered the School of Architecture at Oklahoma University, but he soon switched to art and design. After graduation, he returned to the Washington area, where, always an excellent draftsman, he began working as a technical illustrator for the Nuclear Utility Systems’ publications. He later applied for a job at the newly launched USA Today. Hired as an illustrator, he began exploring color in the various maps and charts he created. The hours at the newspaper allowed time for his own independent work, and Isensee rented studio space from Robin Rose, a master of encaustic painting, who introduced Isensee to this historical wax-based technique.
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Enamored by the smooth and sensuous tactile surfaces and the possibilities of truly luminous colors, Isensee created encaustic pieces that brought his work to the attention of the wider art world. Upon his move to New York in 1987, he began exhibiting in progressive spaces, such as Tricia Collins Contemporary Art and White Columns. He also began to develop his signature style and often combined geometric and biomorphic shapes.
The compositional scheme of the painting titled Guru Rug (1999) was a harbinger of many subsequent works. Its rectangles and squares, rendered by a simple colored outline with rounded edges, are stacked together as if they were the river stones his grandfather used to build the family home. Its architectural and structural vision is clearly present. An unexpected compositional element, however, is the insertion of a number of similar but smaller shapes, organized into an outline of a square in the upper part of this seminal painting. There, the shapes are rendered in color, seemingly creating a focal point of the work—a painting within the painting that attracts full attention. Open and closed forms and further-developed color relationships foretold the compositional organization of many of the large works that followed in the first decade of the new millennium.
A strict geometry prevailed in these newer large scale works, where striving for perfection was paramount. Large compositions were hand painted, without the aid of tape or other devices. This makes the labor-intensive nature of painting the multitude of parallel lines or rectangles almost physically palpable. There is the physicality of the canvas weave, and although every effort is made to make the thickness of each colored line absolutely unwavering from top to bottom and from left to right, small irregularities do, and are meant to, occur: “Painting will humble the pride of any perfectionist,” states the artist.2
Isensee resolutely explores the agglomerations of strictly geometric shapes or parallel lines, often confined within the frames of the larger rectangles and frequently stacked on top of each other. In these works, the architectural rigor of structural balance is omnipresent. Rendered in neon-like hues, the linear elements seem to pulsate, as if stepping from the confines of the canvas into the open. Concentric rectangular shapes seem to recede into the depth of pictorial space. Visual effects growing from the careful calibration of proportions, colors, and shapes makes one recall some effects of the Op Art movement, seen through twenty-first century experience.
After 2016, the austere beauty of the rectangular arrangements seems to have run its course, and Isensee’s compositions become more complex, with a number of smaller elements and compartments filling the pictorial
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space. Still, mostly rectilinear elements are arranged in new configurations that are often reminiscent of hieroglyphic signs in tablets of unknown languages. Ideas for many of these were first explored in small drawings meticulously rendered with colored pencils. Isensee is an inveterate draftsman, so these works stand on their own and are the true linchpins in his working process.
His drawings are intuitive, following the ideas that are often created by the process of drawing itself. As if attuned to the thinking of Giorgio Vasari—the Renaissance theoretician, in whose drawings artists and art historians see the full intellectual underpinning of subsequent artwork—it is within Isensee’s drawings that the essential concepts for his paintings are formulated.
The artist states: “The colored pencil drawings are worked-out intentions for paintings. If selected, then another drawing is made on the canvas to start the painting process. There are changes, some more subtle than others, in the configuration as well as in the color as the painting resolves itself. I am rarely completely satisfied with my drawings or paintings and always have more ideas that come up as I work to get to the end. Often, I’ll start a drawing one way, and it turns into something very different. With painting, there is less leeway, but it’s interesting to me to push where I can while still getting the drawing’s essence. The essence that I saw in the drawing that made me want to paint it in the first place.”
It is in drawings that the new ideas are tested. A few years ago, the lines that had been confined into strict geometries began to rebel. They began to twist and turn, to bulge out, to create unexpected shapes that hover somewhere between cartoonish and slightly psychedelic imagery. It was suggested by Ken Johnson in the introduction to the artist’s catalogue for an exhibition at the Miles McEnery Gallery in 2020 that the loopy character of Isensee’s work was inspired by his obsessive listening to “Wiggly World” by Devo. It is true that listening to music is an important part of Isensee’s creative process, and his musical tastes are all-encompassing. It thus would not be far-fetched to see sonic influences translated into visual forms.
As has been the case in recent exhibitions of Isensee’s paintings, the rules of symmetry are in full command. This is made very clear in the 2022 work with the appropriate title To Be Clear. Here, the square format is divided into quadrangles filled with almost identical flower-like elements separated by a “cross” of graceful blue leaves. Those are kept in place by yet another “cross” shaped like an emblem of the medieval Maltese Order. The overall
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blue tonality makes it is hard not to think about medieval manuscripts, this time with a nod to the Virgin who, in Christian iconography, is identified with the color blue. Almost Blue (2021) emanates very different feelings— mechanical, industrial, utilitarian. We can see the dominant shapes becoming useful tools—as well as potentially dangerous implements.
Much kinder feelings are presented in Gentle Cycle (2022), which is formed by imagery potentially derived from an industrial vocabulary. Here, the four elements, occupying four quadrangles, suggest gears disguised as flowers that are “gently” powering a phantasmagorical hippie engine. In works such as this, Isensee acknowledges the influence of Paul Feeley, the 1950s and ’60s painter of simple geometric shapes, often repeated in various configurations. Not truly a hard-edge painter, Feeley favored balanced geometries and often quoted iconic shapes associated with popular culture.
Some of the paintings in the present exhibition were executed, or are based on drawings made, during the COVID pandemic. The anxiety of those dark times, amplified by a divisively aggressive political climate, is reflected in the exhibited works. The downright anthropomorphic composition Hello Darkness (2022) has the intensity of Edvard Munch’s Scream. It also displays affinities with indigenous cultures of the Americas. Smiling Buddha (2021) will be seen by some as a joyous representation of this much-worshiped deity, but for others it could depict a fleshdevouring menace tracking its targets with piercing eyes.
One can detect changes in Isensee’s work. The rules of symmetry seem to recede into the background in works such as Background Noise (2022), based on an Untitled drawing from 2021. Here, the artist is attempting to break away from the grid and the strict axial symmetry that are prevalent in earlier works, and the central shape is surrounded by a number of individualized elements. We can follow the subtle changes affecting all of the elements during the translation of drawing into painting. Expanding upon this translation, Isensee has noted that “Drawing is like writing a song and painting is playing it—with room for interpretation and improvisation. I’ve always thought of creating an exhibition as my new album.”
The Untitled (2020) drawing study for Sur le Motif also changes when it is turned into a large composition. This work stands on the liminal threshold of Isensee’s new series. Black lines of various thickness twist and turn through the canvas as if competing with one another. Their energetic movement and intricate layers slow the
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Untitled, 2020, colored pencil on paper
Image Dimensions: 5 x 5 inches, 12.7 x 12.7 cm, Paper Dimensions: 8 x 8 inches, 20.3 x 20.3 cm
Untitled, 2021, colored pencil on paper Image Dimensions: 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches, 6.4 x 6.4 cm, Paper Dimensions: 6 7/8 x 5 inches, 17.5 x 12.7 cm
realization that the composition is built on the underlying grid of uneven rectangles. Subtle areas of color are interspersed through the whole area. There is an implied movement and suggestion of pictorial depth. And there is a feeling of openness, possibly even optimism, with which many of Isensee’s earlier works have frequently been associated. The artist is stepping into yet another phase of his longstanding exploration of the seemingly endless possibilities of geometry in the creative process.
Notes
1. “Some Background Noise/Warren Isensee talks with Geoffrey Young,” essay for Warren Isensee (New York: Danese, 2008): 7
2. Ibid., 9
Charlotta Kotik is an independent curator and writer living in New York, NY. She was Curator at the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo and later Curator and Head of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum, where she is a Curator Emerita.
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Almost Blue, 2021
Oil on canvas 50 x 50 inches 127 x 127 cm
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Full Bloom, 2021
Oil on canvas 60 x 60 inches 152.4 x 152.4 cm
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Funhouse, 2021 Oil on canvas 35 x 35 inches 88.9 x 88.9 cm
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Smiling Buddha, 2021
Oil on canvas 50 x 50 inches 127 x 127 cm
Background Noise, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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Do Si Do, 2022
Oil on canvas 52 x 70 inches 132.1 x 177.8 cm
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Gentle Cycle, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
Hello Darkness, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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Order of the Arrow, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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Pivot and Torque, 2022
Oil on canvas 16 x 24 inches 40.6 x 61 cm
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Something or Other, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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Sur le Motif, 2022
Oil on canvas 75 x 75 inches 190.5 x 190.5 cm
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The Living Daylights, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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To Be Clear, 2022
Oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches 101.6 x 101.6 cm
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WARREN ISENSEE
Born in Asheville, NC in 1956 Lives and works in New York, NY
EDUCATION
1978 BA, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
SOLO
EXHIBITIONS
2023 Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2021
“Warren Isensee: Works on Paper,” Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY 2020 Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY 2018
“A Decade of Drawings,” Danese/Corey, New York, NY 2017
“Warren Isensee: New Paintings and Drawings,” Danese/Corey, New York, NY 2015
“Warren Isensee: New Paintings and Drawings,” Danese/Corey, New York, NY 2012
“Warren Isensee: New Work,” Danese, New York, NY 2010
“New Work,” Danese, New York, NY
2008
“Warren Isensee,” Danese, New York, NY 2006
“Paintings and Drawings,” Danese, New York, NY “Warren Isensee: New Drawings,” Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY
2002
“Deja View,” Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami, FL “Warren Isensee,” Massimo Audiello, New York, NY 2001
“Warren Isensee,” Massimo Audiello, New York, NY 2000
“Soft Spot,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY 1998
“Bait and Switch,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021
“Works on Paper,” Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO 2020
“20/20,” Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO 2019
“STARS,” Philip Slein Gallery, St. Louis, MO “Colored Pencil,” McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY 2018
“Casheesh,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
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2017
“Fool The Eye,” Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY
“All Hell Breaks Loose,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
“The Warmth of Winter,” The National Arts Club, New York, NY
2016
“Black and Blue Plus Orange,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
“Dialogues: Drawings and Works on Paper,” Satellite Contemporary, Las Vegas, NV
“Geometrix: Line, Form, Subversion,” Curator’s Office at Gallery 2112, Washington, D.C.
“Manmade,” Holly Johnson Gallery, Dallas, TX “Hanging Paper,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2015
“If Not For You” (curated by Sue and Phil Knoll), Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
“Infinity Mirror,” Herter Art Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
“Twenty by Sixteen” (curated by Geoffrey Young), Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY
“Geometric Obsession” (curated by Robert Morgan), Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina “House,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2014
“Twenty by Sixteen,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA “Allure,” Jamie Brooks Fine Art, Costa Mesa, CA
2013
“AUGUST a Haze Amniotic Our Dream Aether & Lens of Distance,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2012
“The Beatles,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA “Grey Full,” Jeff Bailey Gallery, New York, NY
2011
“Works on Paper,” Danese, New York, NY
“Draw the Line,” Allegra La Viola Gallery, New York, NY
“In the Presence of Light,” Danese, New York, NY “Notable Henchmen,” Janet Kurnatowski Gallery, New York, NY “Drawing Crazy Patterns on the Sheets,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2010
“Works on Paper,” Danese, New York, NY
“Ecstatic Structure: Bart Exposito, Warren Isensee, Stanley Whitney,” Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS
2009
“Legacies of Abstraction, Theresa Chong, Warren Isensee, and Katia Santibanez,” Esther Massry Gallery, College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY
“Abstract Alternatives,” Nina Freudenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY
2008
“It’s Gouache and Gouache Only,” Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York, NY “Exquisitude,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2007
“Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts,” American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY
“Lines” (curated by Susie Rosmarin), Texas Gallery, Houston, TX “Small Work,” Nina Freundenheim Gallery, Buffalo, NY “Ornament, Ho Hum All Ye Faithful,” BravinLee Programs, New York, NY
2006
“Gray to Black,” Danese, New York, NY
“Jack,” Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“Light in August,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2005
“Works on Paper,” Danese, New York, NY
“Radical Vaudeville,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
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2004
“Finesse,” Catherine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA
“In Polytechnicolor,” Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY
“Full Disclosure,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA “Colored Pencil,” KS Art, New York, NY
“Painting by Design,” Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI
2003
“Tastes Like Chicken,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA “Makeover,” Massimo Audiello, New York, NY
“Inside Scoop,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2002
“Abstract Redux,” Danese, New York, NY
“The Tipping Point,” Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
“Loss and Ardor,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2001
“Persistent Painting: Peter Coe, Warren Isensee, Kelly Spalding, John Tremblay,” Genovese/Sullivan Gallery, Boston, MA
“Group Exhibition,” Fusebox, Washington, D.C.
“Waiting List,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA
2000
“lala,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY “To Detail,” Geoffrey Young Gallery, Great Barrington, MA “Summertime,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY
1999
“Mod,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY 1998
“Convivial,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY
1997
“Pink and Innocent,” Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, New York, NY
AWARDS
2007
American Academy of Arts and Letters, Art Purchase Program, New York, NY
1999
Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, New York, NY SELECT
COLLECTIONS
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Neuberger Berman Collection, New York, NY
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park, KS
Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY
Wellington Management Company, Boston, MA
West Collection, Oaks, PA
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Published on the occasion of the exhibition
WARREN ISENSEE
2 February – 11 March 2023
Miles McEnery Gallery
515 West 22nd Street New York NY 10011
tel +1 212 445 0051 www.milesmcenery.com
Publication © 2022 Miles McEnery Gallery
All rights reserved Essay © 2022 Charlotta Kotik
Director of Exhibitions Anastasija Jevtovic, New York, NY
Publications and Archival Assistant Julia Schlank, New York, NY
Photography by Christopher Burke Studio, New York, NY Dan Bradica, New York, NY
Color separations by Echelon, Los Angeles, CA
Catalogue designed by McCall Associates, New York, NY
ISBN: 978-1-949327-96-0
Cover: Do Si Do, (detail), 2022
