Sikkema Jenkins & Co presents 'The Big Picture' group exhibition featuring eight artists

Sikkema Jenkins & Co in New York is hosting a summer group exhibition titled 'The Big Picture' that brings together eight contemporary painters. The show features Robert Bordo and Merlin James, whose works display contrasting technical approaches while sharing a philosophical alignment. James employs distressed acrylic canvases with exposed supports, creating forms that appear both perfunctory and agonized. Bordo's oil paintings feature lush, glutinous brushstrokes suggesting swift execution, though some works like 'Yankee Dollar' (2011) reveal meticulous labor. Both artists exemplify the principle 'Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind' from Robert Storr's 2007 Venice Biennale. The exhibition also includes John Dilg, Jeronimo Elespe, Josephine Halvorson, Ryan McLaughlin, Ann Pibal, and David Schutter. These artists share a commitment to working within modest dimensions, making the exhibition title 'The Big Picture' somewhat ironic. Halvorson's obsessive realist empiricism provides a complementary contrast to Bordo's abstract empiricism. The show highlights distinctions between picture and painting, as well as between scale and size, while showcasing artists who balance cerebral and visceral approaches to their work.