Warren Isensee

Warren Isensee’s current paintings and drawings offer luminous, emotionally and optically charged color within a formal system of geometric abstraction. The paintings’ ordered stripes of color imply the condition of architecture and three dimensions, signaling "a vital presence…and the ability of a configuration to command its own space." [1] At once ordered and expansive, these arrangements shift perspective, as the viewer becomes immersed within the choreographed passages of exultant color and dynamic scale.

Rendered with a precise freehand technique, and without the use of tape, Isensee’s work manages to avoid the anonymous, impersonal appearance often associated with hardedge painting. His unexpected juxtapositions of vibrant color are visually intense. "This is earnest work without a whiff of cynicism... Much of its pleasure comes from the vital flush of optimism." [2] "One senses an artist almost at play, delighting in color and line cleverly marshaled, while at the same time engaging modernist conventions." [3]

Born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1956, Isensee studied architecture at the University of Oklahoma and subsequently majored in painting and graphic design. Isensee was included in the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts and received a Purchase Award. He received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 1999 and has exhibited extensively in the United States and is included in the collections of the Blanton Museum, Austin, TX and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, among others. Isensee lives and works in New York City.

An illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It can be viewed online or purchased at www.blurb.com, by clicking on the link below:

Warren Isensee by Danese | Make Your Own Book