Red Lady

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on June 14, 2013 at 11:27am

Curator’s Comments:

 

Red Lady seems to capture your different modes of working- from stylized female figures to decorative, non-objective dot and symbol patterns.  I like the border as a decorative containment, adding a graphic element to the softer, scumbled color in the simplified figure and background. The portrait itself is whimsical, but also employs a hard edged graphic quality that harkens back to Cubistic abstraction. The deep pink/red tonality doesn’t read as feminine or fleshy for me, but exerts a primitive, primal rawness. The fan shape below the face functions as adornment or garment, and nicely echoes the formal treatment of the zigzagged waves in her hair. Of the non-objective pieces, I’m especially drawn to the work entitled Connections.  While I appreciate the statement below the piece alluding to connections between our environments, I like that it succeeds without content, on a purely formal level.  The opposition of the dots as units sets up an interesting visual dialogue, as if the circular shapes represent units in a game or battle plan.  The reversal of values further delineates patterns within pattern, within a more holistic design. The color is also highly engaging, again setting up a contrast between warm and cool forces on a linearly divided ground. I’m also interested in the very different figurative work, Women in Art, Where Are They?  This piece is cleverly referential, appropriating Cubistic/Modernist works in the open book.  In this vein I can’t help wondering if you intentionally employ a “feminine” aesthetic in your abstracted works.