The Shower

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on April 18, 2016 at 2:04pm

I'm so happy to hear that my comments about your work resonated with your intent.  I often find there is a gap at times between what I intend in my own work and what the viewer perceives.

I did read in the notation that you worked in soft pastels- it's just that at first viewing I imagined an aqueous medium.  I'm sure that had quite a bit to do with the suggestion made by the subject matter!  It's amazing that you are able to create such a broad range of surfaces and suggestions of transparency with the pastel.

I also hope you keep posting on the site.  Very nice work.

Comment by Julie Clark Howard on April 16, 2016 at 1:27pm

I am struck very hard by your words and overwhelmed by the accurate interpretation of each piece.  I always appreciate it immensely when someone "gets" what I am doing.  You have made reference to watercolor, I do hope that it was simply that, a reference,  as I work in nothing but organic soft pastels. I have had to read your comment several times to fully grasp that an appreciator of art has seen what I do and truly visualized the purpose and underlying meaning of it.  Thank you so much. Your words have been a real push of encouragement. At times...every artist visits that place a doubt.

Comment by Resident Curator on April 15, 2016 at 6:57pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

I’m most drawn to your figurative pieces such as Rippling Effect, and The Shower.  The Shower in particular has a hyper realism that I would have imagined was accomplished through airbrush or watercolor.  The bits of intense color variation and hard edged contours in the water running down over the face give the piece its graphic appeal. The extreme cropping of the eyes and nose cause me to see the face as a topographic map of sorts, with highly articulated eyebrows and lashes!  While the image could be seen as sensual, I don’t view the introduction of the water as a subtle inclusion or variant, but as an overwhelming sensory element.  Even more dramatic watery distortions are realized in Rippling Effect.  Perhaps more realistic in the traditional sense than the previous piece, the portrait is softened considerably through abstraction.   I appreciate the rhythm and separation of the warm and cool hues, which establish a complex figure-ground relationship.  Both figures seem to be emotionally charged rather than exist as formal figure studies.  The other cityscapes and still life pastel drawings you’ve posted on the site show extreme versatility in subject and stylized realism.  In several of the works I find myself contemplating the forms as better than life.