Nicole Zehr
Untitled
To look, to
see, to glimpse, to glance, to notice, to observe. The experience of sight is
remarkable. This of course is an understatement. It has to be because it is a
statement and how could language relate the experience of one of the senses?
This little
painting, smaller than a sheet of typing paper, held my attention for two
hours. My eyes never grew tired of looking at it because it continued to yield
a changing optical experience. The background would push forward then seem to
recede. I say background yet his is an abstract painting. Until its not. There
is the suggestion of space here, there is distance, more distant distance.
There is a horizon. There is the impression of a centered form. There is
a form in front of this one though it seems to be moving. A wave, maybe?
I see a
boat, a ship. And then, I can’t not see this form as a ship, this painting as
nautical. But it continues to change. There is a push and movement of
atmosphere. There is the light from the farthest distance pushing through to
the surface of the painting. There is almost the impression of wave-like
motion. How can this be as there is not a recognizable form in the painting?
When I saw
paintings by John Constable in London I was overtaken by their strangeness. It
was not the just image but the way the surface of the painting seem to change
as I looked at it, change in the corner of my eye as I looked away. This almost
created the sensation of the drastic weather that the painting portrayed. Or
Corot, the way the trees in his paintings always seem to be moving. The light
patches of paint on the surfaces of these paintings feel like sunlight passing through leaves
on a windy day. Or Turner whose land and seascapes more abstract than
representational. They seem to manufacture light.
This
painting uses an abstract vocabulary to render (as I see it) light, space,
movement, and atmosphere. This painting gives me the easy satisfaction of
looking at a landscape painting and the uneasiness of not knowing what I see.
I must also
mention the wonderful, irregular, edges of this painting. You have to see them.
They render this painting an object as well as an image. There is not an inch
of this painting that is not disorienting and wonderful. I have written this in
the present tense because the two hour exhibition of this painting is over but
I can’t stop looking at it..
EF
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