Published in the Weekly Volcano, Oct. 26, 2017
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| “Symmetrical Four-layered Ovoids & Lattices III,” oil on canvas by Michael Knutson, courtesy Kittredge Gallery |
“Liberal
and Phenomenal” is not my assessment of the two current shows at Kittredge
Gallery, University of Puget Sound. It is the name of the combined shows, each
with works by five painters. “Liberal” in the main gallery features paintings
by painting professors Michael Knutson (Reed College), Richard Martinez
(Whitman), Cara Tomlinson (Lewis & Clark College), James Thompson
(Willamette University), and Elise Richman (University of Puget Sound), and
“Phenomenal” features paintings by Eric Elliott, Anne Gale, Emily Gherard, Ron
Graff, and Jan Reaves.
The first
thing to hit your eyes as you enter the gallery is the array of four stunning
paintings by Michael Knutson on the back wall.
These are bright, almost pulsating op-art paintings with many layers of
overlapping kaleidoscopic patterns of spirals and ovals in seemingly every intense
color available. They are simply gorgeous, almost too much so —too ornamental,
too decorative, too perfect.
Representing
the local art faculty, UPS professor Elise Richman is showing five oil
paintings from a series called “Ripple Ellipse.” Each is a painting in rainbow
colors of concentric swirls of primary colors painted with precision
with paint application that is heavy and opaque. In “Ripple Ellipse: Vortex”
the spirals form a whirlpool going down, while in its neighbor, “Ripple
Ellipse: Rise,” the spirals rise to form a perfectly conical mountain peak.
Many of
the works are scientific and mathematical in concept and require thought and
concentration. Such as in James B. Thompson’s
twelve paintings from the series “Water is Sacred; Water is Life.” Each of the
dozen is square. His medium is a mixture of ink, acrylic, pigment and shredded
United States currency. That’s right, paper money cut into tiny strips and
pasted to the canvas in clusters. Similar clusters of marks, lines, dashes,
squiggles, some like tangled clumps of fine hair or fish nets, float across the
canvases; and in each painting a transparent rectangle of blue sits on top. The
dozen paintings are almost identical but with nuanced changes in color. They coalesce into a single unit.
Outstanding
in the back gallery are Anne Gayle’s two paintings of a woman, one a life-size,
full-figure nude, and the other a portrait head of the same woman. She is a
large woman with dark brown skin. The many shades of brown paint are applied in
short dashes of color like brushstrokes in a van Gogh painting. Seen up close
these paintings are almost abstract fields of closely related dashes of color.
But as the viewer steps back for ever more distant views the strokes come
together to create realistic images of the woman.
Also attention-grabbing in the little back gallery is “Rigorous
Devotion,” an oil and acrylic painting by Jan Reaves. This is an odd abstract
painting with a few clearly defined shapes in dull colors that are applied with
painterly drips and runs. The shapes do not represent anything recognizable and
teeter provocatively between randomness and order; these odd shapes fit
together like pieces of a puzzle. Remove any one shape from this painting and
the solid composition would probably fall apart.
Overall
these are academic paintings. There is nothing startling or new about any of
them, but they are all painted with skill and sensitivity to light, shape and
color. It is an enjoyable show.
Liberal and Phenomenal, Kittredge Gallery, Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5
p.m., Saturday noon to 5 p.m., through Nov. 4, exhibition reception Nov. 4,
5-6:30 p.m.,1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma, 253.879.3701
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