Preacher Man

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on August 26, 2012 at 9:16pm

Curator’s Comment:  

 

I see deliberate emphasis on solidity of form in these works, reminiscent of the early paintings of Cezanne and Matisse.  I wonder if the Modernist association is intentional?  Preacher Man, in particular, is an interesting amalgamation of flat shapes that maintain portions of their structural identify despite the merger of contoured edges describing form.   I agree with your assessment of realism crossing over into abstraction, but I see a more sophisticated blending of local and expressive color.  The figure’s jacket and right side of face offer nuanced cool hues, softly blended into smoky violet tonalities. The atmospherically flat red-orange ground provides a striking contrast to the somber mood of the remaining color palette. But I like that the deeper violet crosses over the top left edge of the picture plane, containing the reddish color block.  The black lines within the figure also help to organize the space, and allow the visual movement to travel in an extreme diagonal.  Fading Flower shares an intriguing blend of geometric compartmentalization of space.  But in this piece I believe the more somber hues traveling across shape boundaries create greater overall unity but less tension.