HENOCH GALLERY

555 West 25th Street New York, NY 1001

STILL LIFES
October 3 - 31, 2009

The Henoch Gallery in Chelsea is known for exhibiting work by both artists and sculptors who demonstrate the best in American, European as well as Asian realism. The current exhibition STILL LIFES includes work by Olga Antonova, Kirill Doron, Daniel Greene, Steve Mills, Janet Rickus, Jaye Schlesinger, Steve Smulka, Sharon Sprung, Ellen Wineberg, as well as Darryl Zudeck. Because the work focuses on skill and craft, each piece is depicted with stunning realism. There are moments when you feel like you need to get up and close to the painting in order to see the actual brushstrokes, just to remind yourself that this is in fact a painting and not a photograph. The work is really quite exquisite and so much attention is paid to representing the precise textures, surfaces and lighting as realistically as possible. You can just imagine how much work and time goes into each meticulously painted detail. I was perhaps the most impressed by the works of Steve Mills, Janet Rickus, and Steve Smulka, although all the artists were able to accomplish that photorealist effect. Sometimes I feel like artists pay so much attention to concept and idea that they forget about actual craft and skill. So,it was certainly nice to see artists who do away with all of that and just focus on painting. I had also learned that the director of the Gallery, George Henoch Schechtman, graduated from Rutgers. But anyway, if anyone is interested in this type of work I would definitely recommend paying a visit to this gallery.