Jay Milder’s Transcendent Expressionism Shines in “Unblotting the Rainbow”

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Nov 6 · 3 min read
“Animistic Ark” Jay Milder, Acrylic and Volcanic Ash on Canvas (2015)

“Unblotting the Rainbow”, Jay Milder’s one-person retrospective at the Provincetown Art Association & Museum (PAAM), is on view through Nov 10, 2019 and marks a stunning solo presentation of the artist’s works on view in the United States. Famous in Brazil and throughout the Americas, Milder (b. 1934, Omaha, NE) is a leader of the East Coast Figurative Expressionists of the Post-War American Art scene, and holds deep ties to Provincetown, MA, having first held an art studio in the area in the late 1950s.

Jay Milder, an artist with a range of influences spanning from Jewish mysticism to Chaim Soutine, works in a readily identifiable formal painting style with bold, bright shapes of color and patterns spanning the picture plane. The paintings communicate something beyond the realm of the readily visible. The artist has had an incredible sixty-plus year career, and throughout that time his practice has evolved while settling deeper into its successful elements. “All artists have our own space and time which we seek to express,” notes Milder, whose works have shifted over time and remained responsive while ever capturing his universal beliefs. Working since the 1960s in esoterica, Milder spent 2 years at the Sorbonne University in Paris and also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. His early career was shaped by summers at his Provincetown art studio, where he met other artists Bob Thompson, Mimi Gross, and Red Grooms among others. A force of personality, Milder maintained links with his fellow creative thought leaders, later collaborating with Grooms and Allan Kaprow.

Tapped into the art scene yet firmly unafraid to strike out on his own with his individualistic style, Milder was noted by Vivien Raynor in the New York Times as a… “mystic who draws inspiration from the Old Testament, music of Shostakovich and Ornette Coleman, in particular, and the morphology of nature.” (Vivien Raynor, New York Times, Sunday, March 13th, 1994.) Milder’s artistic practice shifts between bold swaths of color and incredible visionary, representational elements and smaller, tightly packed, energetic patterns spanning across the canvas. Where Milder’s work holds its own space, it also challenges contemporary artists to look beyond the present moment and to consider the past which makes us part of a shared contemporary culture.

“Dream House” Jay Milder, Oil on Canvas (1970)

Jay Milder’s “Unblotting the Rainbow”, curated by Adam Zucker, is on view at the PAAM through Nov 10. Milder has been covered in Art News, Artforum and the NY Times and his work will be on view in Havana, Cuba in May 2020 at the Casa Museo de Mexico.

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Visual Art at the Forefront

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Visual Art at the Forefront

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