Looking at Looking
By Tom Wachunas
“…There is a sense of anticipation in the
works. Forms surface and submerge, press against one another as if for support
or come together as if magnetically, sexually attracted. In these works,
idiosyncratic markings disrupt and energize the expansiveness of the surfaces
and the solidity of the shapes, imbuing the paintings with a quirky sense of
humor…” - Patricia Spergel
EXHIBIT: PEEKING THROUGH- Recent paintings, drawings
& monotypes by Patricia Spergel / THROUGH SEPTEMBER 29, 2017 at Main Hall Art
Gallery, Kent State University at Stark, 6000 Frank Avenue NW, North Canton,
Ohio / viewing hours Monday-Friday, 11 A.M.-5 P.M.
We are living in a world increasingly stooped
by the weight of accumulated visual data that both demands and divides our attentions.
The sheer ubiquity of photographs and otherwise traditional representational
art alone can be so overwhelming as to leave us floundering in rivers of
superficiality. Saturated by the common and familiar, we can become
desensitized to the truly extraordinary or mesmerizing. As our imaginations
might slip into a state of complacent dormancy, we’re numbed. We might notice
things, but not really see them. And in our rush to do so, we often look too
fast.
I’ve always
respected non-objective abstract painting for its probative descriptions of
what is not immediately evident, yet still essential in embracing the visible
world. In its most expressive manifestations, it is a genre uniquely suited to
rendering – and often reconciling - life’s most vexing dichotomies: chaos and
order, harmony and dissonance, disciplined rationality and intuition. Comprehending
it first requires our willingness as viewers to click on our pause buttons, as
it were, and take the time necessary to fully engage protracted moments of
discovery and revelation.
The particular type
of abstraction practiced by painter Patricia Spergel is, then, an ardent
commitment to slowing down long enough to let paint be paint as her imagery emerged
through time. But it’s not an illustrative imagery of a static world.
What we see aren’t
completed scenes or finished objects that magically appeared intact on the
surface of the canvas. Look long, look slow. There’s a history, an evolution.
An evidence trail. These oil paintings are exuberant records of Spergel’s
intuitive decisions in response to how her utterly luscious colors might blend
or conflict, to the variable detailing and scale of shapes vying for our
attention, to shifting figure/ground dynamics, to the lightness or heaviness of
touch and line. There are the rhythmic motions of pulling or pushing the brush
across a swath of thick or thinned-out paint, now quickly, now slowly… of
scraping, dragging, washing, of covering up, exposing, and covering up again.
Neither monumental nor intimidating in scale
(no larger than about 3’ on a side), the paintings are nevertheless big enough
to immerse us in a marvelous equipoise of real work and real play. Here is a
thoughtful and intimate confluence of drama and humor, of silences and
transfixing noises.
Spergel’s painterly vernacular is certainly in
some ways a codified articulation of private experiences, including her
sensations and memories of people, places, and things. It’s important to keep
in mind that for as much as an abstract painter is in dialogue with process,
method and materials, the painting itself can and should be an invitation for
us to enter a conversation, to have an experience in real time. In that sense,
looking at a painting should be an RSVP moment. In our own act or method of
looking, we can create for ourselves a memorable experience in its own right.
The late, great
painter, Richard Diebenkorn, once observed, “It is not a matter of painting
life. It's a matter of giving life to a painting.” And it’s a matter that Patricia Spergel has
clearly taken to heart.
PHOTOS from top: Havana Pink / Bolted / Bee Hive / Splish
Splash /Santa Maria Novella / Moon Jelly
No comments:
Post a Comment