Press Release

Spanierman Gallery, LLC at East Hampton is pleased to announce the opening on July 24, 2008 of Frank Wimberley: Physicality / Action, an exhibition of paintings by an artist, known as a painter’s painter, who is a prominent member of the artist community of Eastern Long Island.  Esteemed by his fellow artists for his masterly abstractions, consisting of unusual manipulations of paint, color, and texture, Wimberley creates paintings that can project the heated dynamics and gestural qualities of Abstract Expressionism, while serving as cool acknowledgements of the factual, non-illusionist components of the artwork.  The exhibition is accompanied by a brochure featuring an essay by the noted art historian Phyllis Braff, who is currently writing a book on Wimberley’s art.

Consisting of paintings dating from 1994 to the present, the exhibition reveals the range of Wimberley’s production, demonstrating his inherent feeling for the expressive potential of material and surface as well as the bold experiments with texture that have long been central to his approach and to his predilection for using physical components to shape a work’s impact.  At times Wimberley’s varied and accumulating textures within a single work can build intensity.  For example, the optically vibrating combination of thick, buttery overlapping red strokes adjacent to striated green color drags in Conclusion (2006) create a compelling tactile effect.  Other works suggest the artist’s interest in using the physical nature of paint’s fluidity to establish an evocative surface.

Many of Wimberley’s works include elements of collage, which challenge the illusionistic appearance of a painting by creating another dimension and bringing in specific references to the real world. These collage components often retain some sense of a past¾ a life prior to being annexed for a role in the visual arts.  In addition, Wimberley sometimes saves, cuts, and reuses his own pigment gestures, thus bringing in additional dialogue with the past.  In the large body of recent paintings, Wimberley seems to be acknowledging the quotidian, but he also appears to carry the collage concept further to bring in the psychology of perception.

A sense of action and movement makes a significant contribution to the energy and perceptual urgency present in Wimberley’s large-scale paintings, such as Zest (2008).  In these works, he furthers the Abstract Expressionist legacy while expanding the approach through exuberant paint strokes that reflect his respect for the role played by intuitive processes in studio decisions.  This is a tradition that also values the visible brushstroke as direct evidence of the human psyche.

Developing an original visual language is a central goal for Wimberley.  Soulscape (1994) has an agitated surface created by a lexicon of autonomous, fractured marks and gestures, with some inventing a dry, scrape-like texture.  Other marks, more complicated and voluptuous with heavy impasto, give the observer the sensation of watching the moment when strokes turn into forms, as in Misoso (1997).  The language found throughout the large canvases can almost be described as a physiology of interactive gestures.  In works in which he suggests action evolving from optical energy, investigates the tonal weight, mood, and emotional resonance of color, and explores the moods generated by thick, dense, monochromatic fields, Wimberley continues to pursue  fresh investigations that draw on his extensive involvement with the process of discovering expansive new visual experiences.