Review: Nina Rizzo, “Cool Sticky”/Contemporary Art Workshop

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Despite her faddish invocation of mental topographies and landscapes, Nina Rizzo manages to surpass the viewer’s expectations in a show at the Contemporary Art Workshop. Luminous abstract watercolor and gouache paintings, collectively entitled “Cool Sticky,” display an exuberant materialism centered on the tactile potential of the watercolor and gouache mediums. “Plunge” is an especially effective piece: blue-green watercolors and gouache have been pulled across the paper horizontally in swaths that leave occasional gaps, or slits, between the uneven strokes. The watercolor and gouache have pooled at the edges of these almost obscene interruptions, emphasizing the viscosity and surface tension of the material, and creating a three-dimensional effect reminiscent of Lucio Fontana’s slash paintings. The central grouping of six watercolors furthers this tendency with a multiplicity of dense puddles, thin washes and luscious stains in small compositions that spread wetly across the paper. Rizzo subtly alters our perception of space through this diversity of textures and though these aren’t fully realized charts of imaginary geographies, they are practiced descriptions that extend our account of the materiality of paint—a somatic project that links this contemporary artist to a traditional preoccupation of American painting. Four acrylic paintings also included in the show are more architectural and labored, serving as a leaden contrast to the informal and physical watercolors. (Rachel Furnari) Through October 30 at Contemporary Art Workshop

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