In its inaugural exhibition of the season, Graham presents a selection of Kimber Smith's paintings from the 1970s.  Paintings from this period showcase the artist's employment of a lexicon of forms and shapes.  The seemingly casual feel to the paintings is illusory.  They are in fact the product of a lifetime of planning and consideration.  Every painting has a deep structure embedded with meaning drawn from Smith's life.  The lozenges are roses. The stacked bars are piano keys.  The open triangles are cat ears. His approach successfully achieved that tension between looseness in handling and assuredness in composition that is so widely sought after by many contemporary abstractionists. 

In the 1950s, Vivian Springford received critical acclaim for her Abstract Expressionist black paintings that revealed an acute understanding of Chinese calligraphy which she melded into her action paintings. Around 1961 she transitioned to a method of staining her canvases. She took a step further with the exploration of abstracting forms in nature that predecessors such as Georgia O'Keeffe had begun in the 1920's.

 Sublime, joyous, mysterious-these stain paintings elicit immeasurable emotions and take us on journeys into infinite realms of possibilities like nature itself. Graham proudly introduces an exhibition of the remarkable stain canvases of Vivian Springford.

To view additional works in both exhibitions, please visit our website at graham1857.com