Unwanted paint transformed into chromatic supernovas

Jonathan Horowitz, unsatisfied with the 'many half-full cans of strange coloured paint' began to experiment by using it on his paintings. He came to the creation of a 'chromatic supernova' across his canvases at his studio space in the Bronx. He calls them his 'leftover paint abstractions', and they are making their debut at the Brant Foundation Art Study Centre in Greenwich, Connecticut from May 8th to October.



A few years ago, New York artist Jonathan Horowitz found himself with “many, many half-full cans of strange-colored paint,” he says—surplus from an earlier project. So he decided to see what he could do with them. At first he mostly dabbed the paint around the center of canvases, but he soon began flinging with abandon, splattering every inch of the surfaces, not to mention the walls of his Bronx studio. The resulting works are chromatic supernovas. “I never really know how they are going to turn out,” says the artist, who also notes that the pieces have an environmental conceit. “I see them as a repository for something that would have gone in a landfill.”

These “Leftover Paint Abstractions,” as Horowitz calls them, are making their debut in an exhibition at the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, the Greenwich, Connecticut, museum established by megacollector Peter Brant. On view May 8 through October, the show focuses on the past decade of Horowitz’s 25-year career, during which he has addressed issues ranging from war to gay rights to animal welfare while routinely slinging sardonic arrows at consumer culture, the media, and celebrity. He’s known for cleverly mixing pop and politics, irony and earnestness, often incorporating art-historical references.

At the Brant there are works devoted to Mel Gibson, Anthony Weiner, and Beyoncé; a glittery rainbow flag that riffs on Jasper Johns’s iconic series; and paintings by friends and assistants who’d been instructed to copy freehand—with varying degrees of success—Mirror #2 by Roy Lichtenstein. The centerpiece is November 4, 2008, a room-size installation documenting Barack Obama’s first White House win, with CNN and Fox News coverage from the day replaying on opposing monitors surrounded by presidential portraits. “With the election coming up, it seemed like the right time to look back,” Horowitz says.

Also on display is the first of his now-celebrated dot-painting projects, in which he invites strangers to render a solid black circle on a small canvas. Each contributor receives a $20 check, and their creations are combined into large grids. “I see the dot works as populations,” says the artist. “Each dot, with its variations, is a kind of portrait of the person who made it.”