Barbara Mathes Gallery is pleased to present Under the Influence, a group exhibition of abstract painting and works on paper. In order to explore various stylistic tendencies in contemporary art in context with early 20th century developments, the gallery has asked six New York painters to show their work along with six modern masters, whom the former credit as artistic influences. The result is a multifaceted homage to painting in general, as well as an expression of the gallery's belief in the imaginative juxtaposition of modern and contemporary art. Including works by Franz Kline, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Ad Reinhardt, Gerhard Richter, David Smith, and Leon Polk Smith, Under the Influence features new works by:

Joe Fyfe. Aiming to clear out the busyness of painting, Fyfe's primary concerns are the image of the work and its physical presence. Featuring translucent white paint on stretched burlap, Fyfe's compositions explore the ability to hold and reflect light. Reducing painterly gestures to minimal, yet poetic, as well as highly personal marks, Fyfe succeeds in creating works of meditative simplicity and great depth.

Lance Goldsmith. In his new works, Goldsmith continues his concern with the reconciliation of the natural with the artificial and how it relates to human production. Documenting the artist's belief that painting is both an extension of human thought and activity, as well as a bizarre, even absurd aggregate of materials beholden to historic tradition, Goldsmith's compositions blend multiple layered and intricately detailed structures with vivid expressionistic gestures.

Bo Joseph.  Employing mixed media techniques and materials in an innovative manner, Joseph approaches Abstraction as a possible union of diverse information. In richly textured paintings whose forms fuse influences of Western aesthetics, art history, as well as the primitive arts, Joseph establishes an energetic visual vocabulary that is clearly his own. 

Jim Lee. Devoted to a methodology that is innately human and allows for traces of imperfection, Lee would rather embellish the drip, chip or spill than to deny its existence. Encouraging the occurrence of quirky mannerisms, Lee's constructions, which manifest somewhere between painting and sculpture, are made by a number of combinations that include oil, acrylic, rubber or latex paint.

James Scott. Coming from an architectural background, Scott's work focuses on the evolution of complex geometrical shapes. Letting his subconscious lead the way, he perceives his subject matter in an almost dream-like fashion. In his new series of intimate watercolors, familiar forms emerge out of a luminous color mist, generating a sense of transcendental harmony.

John Zinsser. A leading member of a group of younger abstract painters responding to the legacy of the American Abstract Expressionist movement through newly objective terms, Zinsser focuses on duo-chrome compositions. Radically reduced to just two interactive colors, oil painted over enamel, Zinsser's work generates a meditative sense of strong translucence.