« ARTICULATE », the new show of the Janet Borden Inc.

Little Sister © Tina Barney

JANET BORDEN, INC. is pleased to announce « ARTICULATE », an eclectic new show by artists including Tina Barney, Alfred Leslie, Robert Cumming, Neil Winokur, Donald Sultan, Mary Ellen Mark, Fred Cray, Ray Mortenson, Jan Groover, John Pfahl, and others.

Jaguar factory © Michael Collins

Whether photographing or drawing, all of these artists limn their subjects with a precision that is deliberate and impressive. Almost exclusively non-narrative, the images articulate the subject in a crystalline manner. Layers of information are encoded in these images, yet the artists have made their interests apparent. Metaphor is out.

Fruit and Flowers © Donald Sultan

Robert Cumming’s arcane pursuits have given him a vocabulary and a history of his own. His cut-paper silhouettes present a sophisticated vision through an antiquated method. Fred Cray’s newest self-portraits have visited insane and come back as amazingly complex works, always deadpan and somehow appealing.

Caravag © Robert Cumming

Nature Lab © Jim Dow

Alfred Leslie’s conté crayon drawing of Willem deKooning demonstrates his mastery of the visual iconography of the portrait. Tina Barney and Mary Ellen Mark also make photographs that articulate the sitters’ world through the artists’ direct approach. Neil Winokur’s reductive rendering of both a toilet and an egg (not in the same image) delineates what makes them immediately recognizable.