Fresh Morn

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on March 29, 2012 at 9:22am

Curator’s Comment:  

 

The hazy focus of Fresh Morn plays beautifully into the purplish color palette.  I’m particularly attracted to this painting because of the unusual compositional devices.  The slice of land (or warmly contrasting reflection) jutting into the marshy water points to the idyllic tree just off center.  Scale is uncertain, as the trees could also be shrubs in a smaller landscape.  The muted greens and general horizontal orientation synthesize a tranquil mood, but the broken color reverberates throughout the enchanting scene.  I see the pale sky offsetting the more saturated chroma in the land, but also reflecting the bits of pink and blue on the edge of the waterline.  Adam’s Street is also a work that benefits from an unexpected use of space.  While obviously different in the inclusion of architecture and synthetic structures, the formal resonance between sky and ground pulls the two halves of the piece together in much the same way the earth/sky polarity functions in your more traditional work.  I also like the verticality of Adam’s Street.  The curiosity of the undecided or ambiguous focal point also keeps me engaged. I’m tentative understanding your primary focus of the car pulled up to the curb, the red flower box, or the distant white steeple fading into the sky.  But this intense focus on the mundane transcends the expectant beauty of unblemished landscapes.  Fresh Morn may be where we’d rather be, but Adam’s Street shows us the beauty of where we are.