Evening Visit img063

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on October 29, 2011 at 4:35pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

You have quite a varied repertoire of images.  While most form a direct relationship to the natural world, Evening Visit strikes me as an accomplished representational painting that employs a unique figure-ground relationship.  There is a beautiful use of warm and cool whites.  The pale cattle in the center and her violet hued cast shadow melt into the surrounding landscape, while the darker animals strike dramatic silhouettes against the tinted orange and lavender field.  The crossing east-west direction of the figures also creates an interesting dichotomy, and exceptional pictorial harmony. The left and right looking animals pull me into their horizontal direction, and keep the picture from being too static or peacefully pastoral. I especially like the painterly approach to the subject in this piece.  Looser, active gestural paint strokes in the shadows of the animals rather than directly in the subject themselves creates a mood of pent of energy, or a quickening beneath the still surface.