Extra Credit Essay - Second Saturday Art Walk

Thomas Kollmann
FND105, Friday

Pam Avery
Art Studios
‘Gypsy Eyes’

This highly abstract work in landscape orientation has a suitably

mysterious title. The focal point is a human figure-like shape, just left of
center, that runs almost the vertical length of the canvas. Behind this figure
dark earth tones, also in a vertical strip, vibrate against warm orange and
pink shapes to the immediate right. The clash of colors reinforces a spatial
ambiguity - is the figure shape in the foreground or not? A streamline
sequence of shapes flowing under an arch at the top right suggest a
through-space in the shape of an open gate. Another ambiguity is implied
by the work: does the title refer to the eyes of a presence in the painting or
a point of view the work is meant to illustrate?

Terry Chunn
Art Studios
‘Homage a Kandinsky # 2’

This work is a loosely arranged jumble of ten organic, abstract shapes set
against a geometric background divided into three segments. A warm flesh
color on the left of the canvas cuts a bisecting descending diagonal line
through a cool blue on the top right and a cool purple on the bottom right.
None of the colors dominate. One of the ten shapes, to the right of a black
ribbon shape at centre right, strongly suggests some kind of catfish. Tints
of green and blue with complements arrayed in two ‘string of circle’
shapes create an attractive harmonious element.

Melissa Flores
Art Studios
‘Dreamtime’
Acrylics on canvas, 6”x6”
A large disjointed face with an orange bow tie is the obvious focal point in
this work. A jittery mass of hot color brush-strokes flows from the left
frame line around the head to the upper right and out of the frame. Two
dancing figures are discernible to the right of the face. There is a vague
foreground in front of the face. A pink cat, a gray-violet elephant, an
orange fish and a bright dark green frog are almost fully merged from the
bottom frame line. The artist says that she is mainly inspired in her
representational work by images from nature but recently started
branching out into fantasy and surrealism. This work is a very
iconic/symbolic step in that direction.

Donna Rico
Old Soul Company
‘Hilton Windows’
Photograph, Inkjet on paper, 20”x16”

An elegant example of asymmetrical balance underscored by varied

surface detail. A cold red in the left third of the composition with the
narrow black window pane is balanced by a larger grayish-white stone and
brick area on the right two-thirds area. The vertical centre line of the black
window frame in the white stone area suggests a gridline, the other vertical
gridline being an implied line separating the red from the white stone. The
eye is drawn to the dense black of the left window but the trapezoidal
ledge under the right window and the white ornamental lattice detail under
the left window offer visually counterbalancing elements.

Sarah Haba
B. Sakata Garo
‘Spiral Bound’
Watercolor on Fabriano 300# paper, 15”x22”

A large blank notebook is the focal point of this beautifully simple

composition. The centered object is suggested by a slight variation in
shades between the notepaper and the background and a soft thin shadow
outline. The holes and rings in book’s binding and the outline of an inset
half-page subtly ‘pop’ the object out of the white canvas. An interesting
and perhaps unintended framing effect is created by the shadow cast on the
back of the display box by a curving paper/canvas. The whole composition
conveys a focussed stillness. Blank books are a recurring theme in Sarah
Haba’s work - a theme inspired by an episode of memory loss that she
suffered five years ago due to Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) resulting
from postpartum depression/psychosis. She further defines this thematic
series as “a deliberate attempt to hold on to ephemera” - including the
form of the book itself.

Kristine Branscomb-Fitzgerald
B. Sakata Garo
‘Women’
Beeswax on pigment panel

At a distance the style used in this work mimics pointillism but at close
range the graininess of the work is conveyed by the pitted surface texture
of the panel rather than brush dabs. There is a competition for the viewer’s
attention between the word ‘women’ located close to the top of the third
quarter of the image and the two seated and faceless women in the lower
left. The quarter of the image farthest to the right conveys some deeper
depth through a slightly darker foreground and bus-station doors affording
a view of an urban outdoor landscape. The muted whites and grays and the
harsh white light radiating from the centre of the image lends the work a
desolate and slightly ominous atmosphere.