Goya Contemporary | The Soul Selects: Louise Fishman and Her Heroes, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Eva Hesse | Baltimore
April 20 – June 30, 2022
The Soul Selects: Louise Fishman and Her Heroes, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Eva Hesse
Goya Contemporary
In-Person Viewing:
Mill Centre Studio 214, 3000 Chestnut Avenue, Mill Centre #214, Baltimore, MD 21211
Virtual Viewing:
https://www.goyacontemporary.com/exhibitions/louise-fishman2#tab:thumbnails
Opening Reception: April 20, 2022 from 6:00 – 8:00pm
Goya Contemporary Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition by the renowned New York-based artist Louise Fishman, guest curated by Dr. Judith Stein, PhD. The exhibition, entitled The Soul Selects: Louise Fishman and Her Heroes, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, and Eva Hesse, will be on view from April 20th – June 30th, 2022.
During Louise Fishman’s celebrated 60-year career, it was her good fortune to know Mitchell, Martin, and Hesse. This exhibition is the first to consider Fishman’s quintessential paintings in the context of her friendships with the women who gave her the explicit and implicit courage to be herself when alone in the studio, contributing to her visual and spiritual development as an artist.
Years before Fishman and Mitchell met, the young painter happened on a magazine photo of Mitchell. The aura of toughness Mitchell radiated became a template for Fishman of how to survive as a woman artist in a misogynist art world. As a kindred expressionist with a lifelong passion for paint, Fishman admired the athleticism of Mitchell’s technique.
The friendship between Fishman and Hesse barely had time to develop before Hesse died in 1970. But soon thereafter, when Fishman saw a memorial show for the artist, Hesse’s boundary-breaking work profoundly altered Fishman’s sense of what art should and could look like.
Fishman’s bond with Martin was primarily spiritual. They both favored the grid for compositional structure and shared a longstanding respect for the power of mediation.
While Fishman shares Martin’s proclivity for the virtue of forms based on the grid, her unconstrained expressionism addresses the commanding forces of nature with a ferocity known to Mitchell, though her tactile experimentation amid the physicality of materials and their sensitivity to human emotions nods at Hesse. Though she was known to be inspired by music, travel, art history,
literature, and her identity as a Jewish-Lesbian-Female maker, few scholars have discussed in depth, the influence of Fishman’s three heroes the way guest curator Dr. Judith Stein does in this exhibition and accompanying catalogue.
In addition to a selection of recent and early Fishman paintings, the exhibition will explore the common ground that Fishman found in these three disparate artists by including works from her three heroes. The publication chronicles the development of the artist’s visual language through that of her influences, adding significant scholarship to the study of Fishman’s work.
Following an extensive career, Fishman passed away in 2021, but she is considered by many of her contemporaries as a ‘hero’ to the next generation of painters.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Amy Eva Raehse, Executive Director & Partner at Goya Contemporary Gallery. P: 410-366-2001 or [email protected]
