John Newman
Instruments of Argument: Recent Sculpture by John Newman

"It’s all here, separate, equal and crazily mixed: art, craft and decoration; analog and digital; bases, sculpture and painting; male and female; East and West. The scientific demeanor of spirals and helixes is interrupted by sudden jolts of color or Rococo frivolity. Elements in wood, glass, marble, bronze, metal or paper may be found, made or altered and mixed with plastic leaves or a ceramic sphere, smashed and mended."

ROBERTA SMITH The New York Times, Friday, February 27, 2009

"These "Instruments of Argument" wear their quirks with confidence. They are at ease; indulging in a beauty that often embraces the bizarre, be it through a screeching color scheme or dramatic surface textures. Newman is unafraid of surprises and it is not unusual to find the unexpected, such as a red flying carpet adorned with fake green leaves cantilevering from a skeleton of a shell; or braided brass wires oozing from glass orbs that wrap themselves around a crumpled sketch of the sculpture's construction."

STEPHANIE BUHMANN The Villager, February 18-24, 2009