StrataSphere
1854 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122

As systems and materials changed, so did the picture plane, at first moving to lighter and more transportable means: from cave and plaster wall to wood to canvas, alloys, and more durable papers. Today’s painters have an extraordinary number of choices. Art at “the end of Art”, as coined by Arthur Danto, gives artists a resource-rich environment from which to select, to combine, or to build their visual interactions of the world. Painters, as the tradition holds, continue to use the materiality of color on a support, and the materiality and the expression of both have expanded to include a greater personalization. The picture plane has become part and parcel of this lexicon, not simply its prop. Six artists: Ellen Abraham, Jim Brossy, Louise Desalvador, Jessica Makin, Aurora Deshauteurs, and Carol Taylor-Kearney present their interpretations of using the picture plane as an expressive device.