Massey Klein is pleased to announce our participation in the 2023 TWO x TWO AIDS and Art auction with a painting by Bethany Czarnecki.
The paintings of Bethany Czarnecki focus largely on the use of light and color to transport the viewer to an internal landscape within the female body and psyche. Referencing sensuality, emotion and anatomy, the work aims to create a sensory experience with the use of paint that radiates beyond the edges of the canvas…The manner in which Czarnecki evokes the feminine through reference to the various smooth earthly folds (and enfoldments) initially connects her to the lineage of Judy Chicago, Huguette Caland, and of course, Georgia O’Keeffe. Czarnecki, however, errs closer to the Transcendentalist painters than those artists, seeming to flirt with the spiritualism of painters like Agnes Pelton or Hilma af Klint without going into astrology, symbols, or symmetry. The unflinching manner in which Czarnecki brandishes color is, moreover, most indebted to the canvases of Lisa Yuskavage and Peter Saul, painters who use color saturation like an emotional weapon. Czarnecki has exhibited nationally at galleries and museums, including The Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah; Amy Simon Fine Art, Westport; Hollis Taggart Fine Art; and Massey Klein Gallery, New York.
