Scott Noel @ Gross McCleaf Gallery. Facile paint and a strong eye melded with a futuristic/ancient vibe makes these large paintings timeless and relevant. With a wink at Ingres and a nod to David, Noel paints like he really knows what he’s doing. This painting, “Is That All There Is?” is enormous and packed with narrative information; mixing styles and metaphors as fluidly as paint itself. A portrait of Bill Scott hangs in the Stedman Gallery on the Rutgers campus and I know Bill must be so proud because Noel really makes people look good, approachable and intelligent.DoN spent the day on the Rutger’s Camden campus attending the “To Be or Not To Be” symposium on painting moderated by art blogger Libby Rosoff. Today’s panel was excellent – Noel will be on tomorrow’s. DoN finds the show in the Stedman Gallery to be really edgy and cool, really incorporating new media and modern mark making such as video and venticular prints right next to paintings – painting on photographs and even the lenticular prints was felt really Jetson-eque, like DoN is finally living in the future.
