Phil Sims at Stark - Brief Article

Art in America, July, 2001 by Lilly Wei

Phil Sims's work has changed, although for those whose eyes glaze over at the sight of monochrome paintings, the difference won't register. While Sims often creates on a monumental scale for museum installations or for collections like Count Giuseppe Panza's, his new work presents a less public presence. The format is large enough so that the color has authority, yet small enough so that authority is not dissipated. Of course color can be made to successfully span large fields, but by scaling down somewhat, Sims allows different sensations to emerge, a greater intimacy, a more private response.

These paintings, all vertical and dated 2000, come in a broader array of colors than Sims usually exhibits together, perhaps a formalist's nod to diversity. In the rear gallery were a red, a blue and a yellow painting, but the red is almost blue, the blue-red almost purple, and the intense, volatile yellow dims and brightens as you gaze at it (Sims calls them Untitled Red, Untitled Dark Violet, Untitled Yellow). Each verges on another tonality, another character, another kind of balance between stroke, color and light, which makes these surfaces complex, unstable and consequently intriguing; if you looked hard enough, you might resolve the ambiguities, but most likely not, since they are built in.

Shown in the main gallery were Untitled Orange, warm with a cool sheen; Untitled Lavender, cool with a warm sheen; and Green Portrait #10, which is more of a teal, a green that teeters toward blue, teasing the eye. Untitled White is actually green, but just barely, more like the thought of green, while Untitled Umber is a deep, luscious, chocolate brown.

Construction loosened, process revealed, these oil paintings move between surface and depth and are breachable. You can see into them. The strokes play across plush, velvety surfaces--art for the fingertips, but don't touch--as markings of a free-floating plus-and-minus system that advances and recedes. Sims is reveling in a beauty that is more in the foreground than before. His work is retinal art of a high order and a reminder that however compelling Duchamp's point of view, it is not the only one.