Fred Valentine's Subversive Paintings Challenge Abstraction at Studio 10

Fred Valentine's exhibition 'Toward Grandfather Mountain' ran from February 6 to March 8, 2015 at Studio 10 in Brooklyn. The show featured thirteen oil paintings, primarily on wood panel, that subvert expectations of abstract painting by embedding emotional and representational allusions. Valentine's works employ trompe l'oeil frames and optical illusions that blur distinctions between abstraction and representation. Paintings like 'Untitled Abstract Picture #14' (2011-2012) feature color transitions from dark walnut to grey in interlocking shapes that reference Frank Stella's Polish Village series. The exhibition culminates with the five-and-a-half-foot oil on canvas 'Toward Grandfather Mountain,' depicting a moonlit mountain scene through boulders with a textured, crusty surface reminiscent of Ad Reinhardt's work. Valentine's approach shares conceptual ground with contemporary painters like Charlyne von Heyl and Gary Stephan, using pictorial language to explore how emotion emerges from formal elements. The artist's sarcastic tone simultaneously embraces and ridicules obvious interpretations, creating works that appear as pleasant constructivist paintings but reveal deceptive complexity upon closer examination.