Page 124 - Masters

master

AMY COHEN bANkER

Lives and works in New York New York, USA

SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.amycohenbanker.com

Amy Banker is an artist pursuing her very own vision. An independent by She presents her viewers with a gorky-like profusion of organic forms,
nature, she has developed a passionate style that reflects her considerable bending and curling around each other with sensual abandon. Arabesques
intelligence. Devoting herself to the expression of feelings and thoughts at of red and green, patches of yellow and blue, bloat across her canvases
a time when painting itself is being challenged as an art form, Banker has highlighted by the white ground. It is playful painting, intuitively realized-and
persisted in following her particular path during her two decades on the convincing of the emotional power of her art. At the same time, however,
New York art scene. Individuality is the key to a strong esthetic. Of course, her work is driven by thought; Banker’s decisions, in which colors and
a painter living in New York is affected by the city’s long history of action forms are contrasted and compositional forces evenly played out across
painting. But Banker has also lived in Tokyo for three years, and her work the canvas, are painstakingly made. Her paintings are built upon the idea
is equally informed by the startling strokes of fifteenth century Japanese of art as thoughtful 3 action and abandoned pleasure. They comment on
scroll paintings. while her rich use of paint emulates no one in particular, the enjoyable activity of the ephemeral gesture, its unfailing ability to
Banker’s bold effects relate her to almost every artist who paints seriously render visible the internal state of the artist at a particular instance in time.
today. Even if one would find similarities to other artists, it is clear that The unusual skill Banker possesses is important because the premise of
Banker always maintains her own vision. her painting’ addressing, even well into the Digital Age, the relationship
Banker sees painting as a kind of performance or action, in which the of the outer world of art to the inner world of the painter’ reflects on the
overlapping brush strokes, colors, and shapes are themselves the building contemporary understanding of creativity.
blocks of a nascent esthetics. Objects are absorbed and transformed for Banker is independent as an artist not only because it is in her nature
the sake of beauty, as the artist moves towards abstraction. Twenty years to be so, but also because her style demands to be taken in no terms
ago, Banker began by painting a world crowded with objects taken from life: other than its own. Additionally, a painter’s work gains in power as the
umbrellas, bicycles, apples. In her more recent works, such as her rough viewer becomes aware that painting is not only a sensuous but also a
approximations of cityscapes or her interpretations of opera, she seems serious medium, whose every achievement may be seen as belonging to
to be increasingly devoted to the abstract. Also, there is more freedom in a continuing tradition in art.
the handling of paint: her strokes seem to be swifter and she handles her In Banker’s paintings there is always a great intricacy to shape and hue;
colors ever more whimsically. Banker is someone who is at home in the also, more often than not, one finds abstract overdrawings that invigorate
nonobjective world. As time goes by and as her style evolves, more and the underlying forms and colors. Banker’s strong suite may be her sense
more - and this is true about most artists from the fifteenthcentury on - it of color: in her dense, complex paintings the colors overlap and merge,
is the act of painting itself that concerns her, rather than the registration with wispy white brush strokes energizing the work. Or her appeal may lie
of objects. Banker is nothing if not lyrical in her approach to art. Broad in the transparency of her forms, which allows the viewer to see through
bands of paint and curling ribbons of color characterize her most recent them as if the painting were a palimpsest, and which enables her to be
paintings. Like many artists who have been influenced by the New York both forceful and delicate, at once solid and ethereal. Ultimately, Banker’s
School, Banker finds interest in paint as a medium in itself. Her sense main achievement is her ease at creation, the freedom of having nothing
of stylistic allusion emphasizes the physicality of her chosen art form. to prove.
Jonathan goodman

 NOIse GaY, 2005 OIL ON CANvAS 24x36 IN. / 60x90 CM.
KItCHeN sVeLte, 2005 OIL ON CANvAS 36x48 IN. / 90x120 CM.   aIDa, 2003 ACRYLIC ON CANvAS 18x32 IN. / 45x81 CM.

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masters of today