Richard Aldrich's "Eight Paintings" is his third solo exhibition with Misako & Rosen, but his first in their current exhibition space in Tokyo's Otsuka district. As the title suggests, it comprises eight small-scale works. It opens as his show "Time Stopped, Time Started" closes at Gladstone Gallery in New York and runs until the end of April.
Aldrich's work is defined by his consideration of the stylistic and material possibilities of painting. His quiet and nuanced approach has produced a variety of intriguing works full of misfit and marginal painting ideas. In his 2009 essay for Art in America, Raphael Rubinstein included Aldrich in his definition of "Provisional Painting." It referred to painting that looks "casual, dashed-off, tentative, unfinished or self-cancelling." This statement remains pertinent in the consideration of Aldrich's work.
The exhibition space is uncrowded with each painting given sufficient space to be viewed individually, and the impression upon entering the gallery is of a muted white space punctuated by pools of color and figuration. Adding to this effect, Aldrich has altered the gallery's lighting. Half of the strip lights have been switched to bulbs with a light gray-blue filter to create a cool diffuse light.