Shape Shifting at Folioeast
The East Hampton Star
Art Review: For the Love of Painting
Jennifer Landes
November 21, 2019
“Ms. Abramson’s newest paintings share a cohesive palette of plums, pinks, mauves, and white, using mostly color to create darker tones and shadows. The larger canvases, “Inside Buddha’s Head” and “Dream Reflections,” seem to represent faces or facial features — one of a dog in the case of the former, and one of a human in the latter.
They have a moody, hazy atmosphere and summon up the subconscious.
“Inside Buddha’s Head” has a Georgia O’Keeffe vibe, conjuring a looming animal head over an uncertain background. In “Dream Reflection,” the canvas divides roughly into thirds, with a dark twilight kind of sky at top, a middle section of cloudy white, and what appears to be the suggestion of two eyes.
Ms. Abramson’s smaller works, 12-inch-square canvases, evoke studies of objects placed in interiors. But just as soon as these impressions appear, they also dissolve, leaving an intriguing enigma in their wake.
Compared to her older work, there is a definite shift here. Her paintings from a couple of years ago are more loosely organized, with the occasional use of strong linear elements, while these are blockier and more grounded in most cases.”
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EXPRESSION: 4 Painters
The East Hampton Press
Art Review: Perspectives
Eric Ernst
April 20, 2011
"In a similar vein, Shari Abramson uses a combination of expressive brush strokes and confident structuring of the picture plan to create a sense of place- although one always fraught with a sense of mystery that makes the image more evocative of a dreamlike landscape than anything specific.
In "Alone Among the Reed Flowers" (oil on canvases, 2010), Ms. Abramson use of spatial distinction heightens this "mysterial" sensibility through an extremely subtly application of color, while the loosely energetic brushstrokes underscore a feeling of spontaneity and gentle emotional impulse. Merging unobtrusive flares of color and light that mix with abstract images, the artist creates softly melodic images that appear to float in an indeterminate panorama."
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LIGHT OF SPRING
The New York Times
Art Review: Colors of the Season
Benjamin Genocchio
April 13, 2008
"None of the artists are strictly nonrepresentational painters, though Frank
Wimberley, Shari Abramson and Roy Nicholson come pretty close to abstraction.
Still, glimpses of changing foliage and fleeting atmospheric effects seem to lie
behind their wonderfully spontaneous canvases, painted quickly and directly with
loose, intuitive flicks of the brush. Here, distilled in paint, is the essence of spring."
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LIGHT OF SPRING
Hamptons.com
Spectacular “Light of Spring” At Spanierman East Glows With Surprises
By Joan Baum
April 4, 2008
"Bujese has thoughtfully distributed Shari Abramson’s distinctive, light-infused
abstracts throughout the floor, oils of similarly sized masses of color - pale blues
predominating in the de Kooning like “Spring Markings” and “When Rain Has
Passed” – that are delicately accented with flecks and swirls, a surprisingly full
array of color in what first appears to be a limited palette."
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LIGHT OF SPRING
The East Hampton Star
The Light of Spring at Spanierman
From Bowden to Foss: A Riot of Color Blasts The Off-Season Doldrums
"A much cooler approach is taken by Shari Abramson and Deborah Black,
whose compositions on view tend toward the bluer side of the spectrum. Ms.
Abramson’s “Spring Markings,” “When Rain Has Passed,” and an untitled work
have a Joan Mitchell-like quality, completely abstract and patchy, showing a
scene as if viewed quickly through a wet and dirty window."
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WOMEN AND ABSTRACTION: THEN AND NOW
The New York Times
By Benjamin Genocchio
September 30, 2007
"Tucked away behind a shopping mall, this outpost of an established Manhattan
dealer presents first-rate exhibitions. On display through tomorrow is an
interesting group show, “Women and Abstraction: Then and Now,” juxtaposing
abstract paintings by artists who belonged to the era of Abstract Expressionism
(Miriam Schapiro, Perle Fine, Mary Abbott, Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning)
with younger artists working today (Shari Abramson, Sally Egbert, Tracy Harris
and Carol Hunt)."
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WOMEN AND ABSTRACTION: THEN AND NOW
The East Hampton Star
The Indefatigables: Poetics and Rage
By Janet Goleas
September 20, 2007
"A shared lyrical sentiment runs through the works of Shari Abramson and Mary
Abbott. Ms. Abramson weaves small explosions of color throughout a soft ground
of brushwork that reads like a field of spongy lamb’s wool. Ever mutating, Ms.
Abbott maintained a visual dance that moved between vibrant scrawls, jazzy
syncopation, and gentle rhythms.”
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ROUTES TO ABSTRACTION
The East Hampton Star
A Small Forest of Brooding yet Witty Works
By Robert Long
September 21, 2005
"De Kooning’s influence is clear in Shari Abramson’s 4 small square monotypes,
each of which contains a group of shaky, scribbly gestures against a solid-
colored ground of either orange or green. Ms. Abramson’s line is like the one
we see in the drawings of women that de Kooning made with his eyes shut. “
No fear, but a lot of trembling”, as the Kierkegaard-loving Dutchman once joked.”
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ON AND OF PAPER
The East Hampton Star
One Foot Over The Line
By Robert Long
October 7, 2004
"Shari Abramson’s collage “Mountains and Rivers” and her monotype with mixed
media “Mount Rainier” are reversions to the good old days of Modernism. In the
first picture the abstracted landscape is cut up and reassembled in ways that no
one expected to see in 1913 but which are now familiar, and in the second the
mountain, flattened, is represented as a jigsaw puzzle of textures. I like it that Ms.
Abramson whites out big sections of her images, letting the drawing underneath
peek through; less is more.”
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DEALER’S CHOICE
The East Hampton Star
What Twinkles in an Art Dealer’s Eye
By Robert Long
December 30, 2004
"Shari Abramson’s “Water Shed” is a marigold- hued landscape in oil on canvas
that suggests the surface of a desk, or farms viewed from high overhead; it is
made from over-lapping rough-edged shingles of color, a few steps removed
from Cezanne, its interlocking, abstracted forms a bit like those in Diebenkorn.”
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Abstraction x 7
The New York Times
ART REVIEWS; Splashes of Color In Three Group Shows
By Helen A. Harrison
June 15, 2003
"Shari Abramson's oils are diffuse, with abstract elements floating in translucent fields of color and line. ''Jonquille,'' a four-part composition, does not depict the flower of its title, implying instead its wind-borne aroma or the atmosphere in which it might flourish."