Tom Burckhardt's 'AKA Incognito' Exhibition at Tibor de Nagy Gallery Explores New York Abstraction

Tom Burckhardt presented his exhibition 'AKA Incognito' at New York City's Tibor de Nagy Gallery from May 7 to June 13, 2015. Located at 724 Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th streets, the show featured paintings that engage with New York's abstract painting tradition. Burckhardt, who graduated from SUNY Purchase and attended Skowhegan in 1986, employs cast plastic as a surface support for smaller works, referencing painterly doubt. His paintings incorporate biomorphic and cubist geometries, revitalizing historic idioms through spatial ambiguity. Works like 'Incognito' mash grids and patterns with raucous white, purple, and green tones, while 'Avid Antics' evokes Pacific Northwest Native imagery popular in 1930s-40s New York. 'Tangential Meditation' pulses with New York City's physicality, updating Charles Sheeler and Stuart Davis for 2015 with arterial networks and industrial silhouettes. 'The Incredible Think' references Jonathan Lasker, Nicholas Krushenick, and compares to Thomas Nozkowski's work shown at Pace Gallery. Burckhardt's humorous inclusion of a red stretcher bar in one painting reveals studio activity, expanding painting's territory through sculptural incursions. His line work connects to contemporaries Joanna Pousette-Dart and Elliot Green, extending the New York School tradition with traces of Willem de Kooning's late-career style visible in 'Bourgeois Melodies'.