Allison Reimus
REAL ABSTRACTION

Allison Reimus first learned sewing from her grandmother, who is alive and well, crafting every day, and as it happens, exactly the same age as Mark Olshansky. Before she ever saw a painting – her first was a Seurat, at age 14 – Reimus was already deeply immersed in making art. It was the kind that makes no claims about its own status, fabric wreaths, decorative baskets, crocheted hot pads, that sort of thing. But art nonetheless. It’s against this background of what used to be called “domestic accomplishment” that her current paintings should be seen. Like Olshansky, she works more or less intuitively, with just the barest outline of a composition established in advance. (“I don't always stick to the plan,” she says, “but it feels nice to have one.”) Then she, too, just goes, populating the pictorial field with incident: patches of paint alongside actual patches of dyed and raw canvas, collaged images of paint tubes, and eccentrically rendered lettering (xxx). In one work, a handmade hot pad is mounted dead-center like a relic, or perhaps, an allegorical self-portrait of her past teenage self.