Harriet Korman's Geometric Paintings Embrace Flatness at Lennon Weinberg

Harriet Korman presented thirteen new paintings at Lennon Weinberg, Inc. in New York City from March 1 to April 14, 2012. The exhibition, located at 514 West 25th Street, marked a further reduction in her artistic vocabulary, eliminating curved lines in favor of triangles within rectangular grids. These compositions, resembling basic geometric exercises, actively resist subjective interpretation, appearing purely objective. A notable feature is their absolute flatness, rejecting any illusion of depth, a quality rarely achieved in abstract painting since Clement Greenberg's 1955 essay 'Modernist Painting'. While artists like Jackson Pollock and Chris Martin maintained spatial perceptions, Korman's work adamantly inhabits a single plane. Color, brushwork, and line constitute the remaining elements, with a palette of blues, reds, yellows, greens, oranges, violets, and red-browns applied in thin oil layers that glow subtly. Close inspection reveals delicate, hand-painted borders, creating a 'tremolo effect' that infuses warmth and humanity into the reductive forms. The paintings, modest in size yet monumental in impact, challenge traditional depictive strategies, focusing solely on painting's essential qualities.