SILVERMAN and Majestic Theater Condominium Association present
Tim Heins, Fortress Paintings
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 3, 2011, 6 to 8 p.m.
The Majestic Theatre Condominiums
222 Montgomery Street
Jersey City, NJ 07302
201-435-8000
Exhibition on view in the lobby November 3, 2011, to February 24, 2012.
Tim Heins, Fortress #2, Storm Cloud, oil on linen, 2011, 48"x 60" (detail)
For more than 20 years, Tim Heins has maintained a studio on the fifth floor of the Neumann Leathers building on Observer Highway in Hoboken, New Jersey. Five years ago he turned his gaze out the south window, to the train yards and pine trees, to church steeples and tenement roofs, to factories and warehouses, and finally, to the sky beyond. Drawn to the chaos, he began to paint this view.
After a few years, Heins found himself drawn to a huddled mass of buildings that emerge from downtown Jersey City. The buildings, in actuality, are Hamilton Square condominiums, which was the former location of St. Francis hospital on 25 McWilliams Place.
In this series of paintings, the artist reduces the chaotic mishmash of the urban landscape in geometry and hue. How does the sky regard the day? In one painting, as vibrant and aflame in the faraway regions miles above a setting sun; in another, as a dense concrete slab, sinking under the weight of a blinding snowfall; elsewhere, as stunned victim, prey to a turbulent horde of storm clouds steamrolling across the horizon line.
“The prime challenge for an artist is to make an image ‘that works,’ visually,” Heins says. “You edit information to create a more successful painting. Sometimes less is more. Think Miles Davis, ‘Kind of Blue.’ It’s those quiet moments between the notes that give the music its tension and power.”
The exhibition comprises a series of small gouaches on paper and large oil paintings on canvas and linen. Smaller paintings are executed in one sitting to capture a specific moment in time. With the larger works, Heins roughs in the horizon, a simple drawing, to establish scale. As soon as a particular sky attracts his attention, he applies swathes of paint to denote the scene–a band of dark clouds, in the distance, scurrying across the night sky.
Tim Heins (b. 1958) received his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College in 1987; B.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art in 1980; and attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, in Maine, in 1980. Heins’s work has been featured in several museums, including New Jersey State Museum, Morris Museum, Hoboken Historical Museum, and Trenton City Museum. Heins’s work has also been featured in numerous galleries, such as Hudson Guild Gallery, Manchester Space Gallery, Art in General, Four Walls, Hanover Square Gallery, and City Without Walls Gallery.
~ Brendan Carroll, Curator
The exhibition will be on view at Majestic Theatre Condominiums through January 6, 2012. For further information, please visit us at SilvermanBuilding.com or call number (201) 435-8000.
Tim Heins, Fortress Paintings is the fifth exhibition that Brendan Carroll will organize for SILVERMAN.
SILVERMAN has presented the works of Megan Maloy, Laurie Riccadonna, Thomas John Carlson, Tim Daly, Ann Flaherty, Scott Taylor, Jason Seder, Sara Wolfe, Beth Gilfilen, Andrzej Lech, Hiroshi Kumagai, Tom McGlynn, Victoria Calabro, Asha Ganpat, Darren Jones, Ryan Roa, Laura Napier, Risa Puno, Nyugen E. Smith, Amanda Thackray, and Kai Vierstra.
Brendan Carroll 