Philip Shinnick at Steven Harris Architects - New York - Brief Article

Philip Shinnick is a patient, consummate artist who has been showing in Provincetown, Mass., and in group shows in New York since the late 1980s. He makes wooden wall constructions, mostly painted, though he sometimes glues paper or thin shaped plastic to the surfaces of the wood.

This show was composed of three larger works (48 by 57 inches) and three smaller ones (12 by 15 inches). All of them are diptychs assembled from four squares of wood about a half-inch thick. Shinnick often likes to cut a piece of wood in two and rejoin the halves with the seams unevenly matched, forging a humorous rift. In these works, the top and bottom squares are glued to each other, though their edges are slightly off. Then there's a gap between the right and the left panels, big enough to introduce a gray shadow into the composition. All the surfaces are white, painted in oil and marble dust. There's an endearing feeling of partnership between the two sides of these reliefs. The flat left-hand side is serene, taking the light of day directly, while the right, which features a slightly peaked surface (think of a piece of paper folded to make a low tent), is more responsive.

A line is cut into each diptych. Starting at the upper left-hand side, it darts to the upper right, drops along the edge, then heads diagonally back across the right side, communing with the darkest part of these modulating white works. It then continues to the far left. From piece to piece, the angles of this line vary slightly.

There's an engaging simplicity in Shinnick's work and also a kind of goofy idealism, as if a love of Suprematism had turned lazy or dreamy, like the sky.

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