|
|
|
|
||
 |
GERARD PERALES
|
 |
||
|
As if consumed by the force of their own love, the subjects of Gerard Perales’ paintings appear to be physically vanishing into their own backgrounds. With his source in the Eros and tumult of classical love stories, his subjects have been reduced to warm impressions of physicality left on an ancient stone wall. They appear immobilized by the drama in which they’ve been caught up, limbs outstretched and their identities as either victims or lovers not immediately clear. As
|
||||
|
in classical tragedy and myth, the power here lies in the ambivalence between the violent and erotic.
Yet despite the stripped-down quality of his paintings, Perales seems to insist that what remains is more than a skeleton. What is essential to Perales is not skeletal structure, but flesh--the bulge of muscle, skin and gland. His work is not necessarily about pinpointing what is basic about us, but pointing the way for us to discover the vibrant power of love we all share.
Website: www.gerardperales.com
|
||||
 |
||||
|
PATTI PHILLIPS
|
P
atti Phillips’ oil paintings work within the conventions of the still life close-ups pioneered by Georgia O’Keefe. Phillips’ subjects are generally floral or aquatic, and convey an intense tactility: her leaves and petals are delicate, sometimes soft with moisture, other times dry and brittle. They also arouse specific odors and tastes, evoking, through color and shading, smells and flavors associated with specific seasons, flowers and settings. Notions of femininity and fecundity come to mind in her images of petals and leaves, just as change, progress and evolution are dramatized in her lively aquatic subjects.
While staying true to many of her genre of painting’s trademarks, Phillips brings a distinctly contemporary sensibility. Whether her subjects are moving or stationary, Phillips’s brushwork lends her images undeniable dynamism. Rather than the poised stillness of many close-up nature paintings, Phillips conveys movement within each of her canvases. Her proximity to abstraction is also more daring than many working in this style. In most of her works, two colors dominate the palette to such an extent that the canvas is given over to an abstract interplay between them. In other works, the sense of depth and perspective is so tenuously established that the canvas gives itself over to flatness, and the forms become kinetic colors and textures. Phillips’s work, then, brings innovation to what may have seemed a familiar genre.
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
 |
||||
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
 |
||