Gwen’s Blog

Archives:   June 2009

The Chosen Few

Here are a few of the pieces I’m bringing to show in France.  As I worked to build a body of work for this  show,  I became aware that I was not  in charge of the direction it was taking.  Although it’s been a relatively short time, I feel my work and I have traveled some distance together.  Much of the moody darkness of the earlier pieces has given way to work that is lighter and less substantial.

hub

hub


“Hub” is about reviewing the circular nature of my life.  I have ridden the years as they circle around a hidden axis, counting, remembering, and holding on for dear life.

departure

departure


For me, “Departure” is about an impossible faith faced with the imposed limitation of  gravity.  Yet, the yearning to transcend is so strong that one is prepared to take off in the shakiest of contraptions.

intersections

intersections


“Intersections” brings to mind a life woven from thousands  of  intersecting events. The bird and the dervish intersect in an unfortunate encounter which brings the bird to ground rather than the dervish aloft.  Again, the yearning to get off the ground can lead to some tricky situations.

Exhibition of my work in France

Vernissage in Collioure, France

Vernissage in Collioure, France

The poster is printed, the paintings are painted and I’m wondering how I’ll get them to France. They’re painted on wood, and although small (9″x 12″) there are quite a few of them. Carole Watanabe designed the poster. Carole’s painting is the background for Alice’s (bottom) and mine (top two). An unusual presentation, n’est pas?

Collioure, the town where Galerie L’Art Vivant is located, is a fishing village on the Mediterranean a few kilometers from the Spanish border.  The Fauves,  Andre Derain, Henri Matisse and several other early 20th century iconoclastic painters, chose  Collioure for it’s charm and magical light.  Carole Watanabe’s paintings reflect the joyful vitality and brilliant palette of the Fauves.

Alice Liff’s mixed media collages with their soft palette and nostalgic imagery are more introspective.  Her work explores a world of what might have been.

My work courts the mysterious parts of my psyche.  I might capture their images, but probably not their secrets.

By the way, a vernissage is an art opening.