January 5 – March 30, 2012

The Riverside Art Museum is pleased to exhibit CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, works on paper by Brooklyn-based contemporary artist Julie Torres. 

Torres’ works are visually potent, portable exercises in color and composition, and of the psychologically-charged underpinnings that they explore. The works on view at RAM can be divided into two groups: composite works, known as “puzzle paintings,” which consist of grids of individual works on paper that serve both as their own works and inform parts of the larger whole, and stand alone works on paper. Torres’ unbridled experimentation and expression conjures relations to Modernist artists Philip Guston and Eva Hesse’s lesser known works on paper, while achieving a freshness that still relates to contemporary movements. Torres says of her artistic process:

I like to explore the area between what’s private and what’s exposed. I enjoy paintings that are secretive and a little unclear. I try to never think when I’m painting because, if I do, I’ll ruin it.

At once cartoonish and sumptuously visceral, Torres’ works portray dynamic systems and processes that often mirror the subconscious that created them.