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Daphne Cummings "Evensong"
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The last word is color
Eight painters heed "The Color Imperative" in a project space dialogue.
By LORI ORTIZ
Offoffoff.com
"A salon you have here," said painter Katherine Bradford entering N3 last Sunday. And what better place to discuss "The Color Imperative."
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| | | THE COLOR IMPERATIVE | Exhibition: The Color Imperative.
Paintings by: Eric Ansel, Daphne Cummings, Don Gummer, Molly Herman, Margrit Lewczuk, Chris Martin, Loren Munk, Susie Rosmarin, Richard Timperio, Eileen Weitzman.
| | SCHEDULE | May 7-30, 2004
Gallery: N3 Project Space
85 N. 3rd St.
Brooklyn NY
Hours: Sunday 1-6 and by appointment
Phone: (718) 599-9680
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In Daphne Cummings reductive "Evensong," blocks of color maintain a respectable distance. An open orange ground feels peaceful and expectant at the same time. The washy paint handling creates a transparency that relates to her recent installations of found colored glass bowls. Simplicity of means is this artist's method, used to rich effect.
With just a few definitive colors, Margrit Lewczuk creates a labyrinthine map of cells in Halley's fluorescent hues. Escher-like twists of space irreverently wrench a valuable sheet of handmade paper. The 'artists hand' is everpresent but dissociated in this patch of garish glyph-like pattern.
Rich Timperio's large "Mic-mac" is encompassing, in the abstract expressionist sense. But over this moonscape of muted earth tones, the eye traverses the gritty vicissitudes of the quotidian.
In the painting "Mello-candy," Molly Herman brackets a mŽlange of muddy tones with a larger than life green quote. The amazing coexistence of greens is sweet and seemly. The quote works conceptually and formally to interest us in this forest floor monochrome.
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| Lori Ortiz | | Chris Martin
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Painter Chris Martin applies bright colors on a lump of sprayed and hardened foam insulation. An 'experimenter' like Paul Klee, he stamps smooth flat areas in the caustic colored ooze to accept his happy Playskool palette. This sample of a sophisticated colorist has all the seductive appeal of raw cookie dough.
Eric Ansel's seriously speaking abstraction of orange brushstrokes filters in an undercurrent of brisk atmosphere. A barely perceptible watercolor of sculptor Don Gummer commands inordinate consideration; tiny bars of pale color build a structure on the flat plane of a sheet of sketch paper.
Loren Munk's "Obviously the Artist," is a multifaceted pastiche of pictorial elements. This artist/writer's easel sized offering is set in a camp baroque mirrored mosaic frame. In this eyeful of a painting, close and contentious colors support the familiar identity questions. In Susie Rosmarin's plaid undulating "xx," colors meet in luminous vertices. Eileen Weitzman's dark meditative impasto creation completes the round table on the color fulcrum.
In varying degrees, the element of color is a guiding light in the painters' progress. The 'Imperative' bids are lively visual and intellectual conversation. As galleries come and go, this one affords first class art and a dose of rare artistic community.
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MAY 21, 2004
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