Crested Butte 3

Comment

Comment by Shelley Hull on April 28, 2012 at 7:35pm

Thank you so much for your extensive and thoughtful comments about my paintings. I have felt pretty good about them recently and have been pushing them a bit, so it is neat to get feedback. I appreciate you taking the time and care to really look at them and respond so articulately. Working as I do (and many of us do) in isolation, it is quite a special treat to have someone really take time to examine the work and respond.

Comment by Resident Curator on April 28, 2012 at 1:24pm

Curator’s Comment:  

               

These are solid and earthy landscapes.  The relatively close range of tonality and hue unifies the space, and brings a steady calm to the sky-land relationship.  I particularly like Crested Butte for the offset blue-violet foothill, as it seems at once substantial in mass, but also frothy and luminous against the analogous cool sky.  The form rises up out of the greener space, elegantly shifting through violet tones before reaching its peak. The ochre stretch of texture from the foreground to middle leads the eye back into the space, but gives the viewer a heightened sense of intensity and visual clarity as we are moved to the edge of the horizon.  Instead of an even more hazy sky, as we are accustomed to seeing in traditional atmospheric landscape, the contrast of the bright white clouds and turquoise sky offset the less distinct lower chroma ground.  I also find this surprising juxtaposition in Blanding Ruins- another piece that vacillates between unyielding chalky opacity in the landscape and a bright and clear blue atmosphere.  I enjoy the unpredictable movement in this work, as the gestural marks in the expressive terrain suggest rock and grass, but culminate into an organic, generalized plane. These spaces come together in a manner that seems natural, and effortless.