Work at the Bronxville Women’s Club
The last time I exhibited my work at Bronxville Women’s Club was during March 2020. The reception was just after the first few cases of COVID 19 were being reported. Just barely a mile down the road, people with these cases were being admitted into the local hospital. At the opening, we were wondering about the nature of what was to come. Within weeks the world shut down.
The works on paper came first and are part of a much bigger grouping, many of which didn’t succeed. Most of ones framed for this show are built from light layers of gesso on Rives BFK or other nice drawing paper. The imagery (in acrylic) comes from various sources in combination–family pictures, landscape references from various spots I visit, or views from tv shows. Several use rooflines from New England towns as Essex CT or Woodstock VT. Motifs as ships have entered several pictures over the past year – I associate this with movement of sorts. Sometimes it evoked a movement through time or various eras. I’d been reading some from The 1619 Project which also conjured the idea of boats with a darker historical overtone.
There is something there about the idea of disparate parts meeting up with one another. Not reconciling, or inventing a new story, but allowing things to coexist. Synthesis reached through pairings and juxtapositions.
The pictures of my daughter often refer to ideas about change, as she leaves to embark on her college years. The separation, whirl of time it all encompasses, and transport into new horizons are all things I’ve thought about as I’ve worked on these compositions.
Most of the larger paintings on canvas are painted in layers. I started with an underpainting in dark red in acrylic – and gold in the sky spaces. And layered oil on top. Many of the figures are my daughter and her friends – and my husband. Still life objects reference family as well. There are ideas about separation and movement forward also appearing in these. I think anything I include has some sort of associative connections. Nothing is too stringent. I like to stay in the open-endedness.
The really small pieces are extensions of notebook explorations where I was combining still life objects in near spaces, figures in the midground and various known landscapes forms in the distance. A lot of the landscape elements are from our visits into the PA countryside. And usually it is the gesture that compels me to use a certain figure – many pictures of Molly and her friends have these great active gestures to explore. Sometimes I am just after trying to connect things from very near to an inferred horizon line. How do I get there? (How do I work this?).
There is a combination of inventiveness and observational work, trying to solve something, and looking for the right puzzle piece, and letting intuition lead the day.