Artists create work with an abstract eye |
| By Alexa Hinton, ahinton@nashvillecitypaper.com August 31, 2006 |
|
When abstract landscape artist Patrick Adams traveled to southern France on an art scholarship,
he said he thought glimpsing the long-awaited, idealized vistas would be the ultimate inspiration.
But to his surprise, Adams found the tree- and rock-filled scenery not so unlike the region of his
Nicholasville, Ky., home. “I am not sure what I was looking for, but I thought I’d sit on a hilltop and paint all day long, but I wasn’t so moved to do that. So I put my pen down, looked around and took note of what I was seeing,” Adams said. “The thing that really struck me was how time was recorded in Europe. It is all present at the same time.” The beauty, to Adams, laid in the visible patinas of time and the layering of civilizations that encompassed him in every day life. “You’d walk on an old Roman road, pass a 21st century car, round a corner past a modern building and there’s a hut from thousands of years ago. Or when you look at the walls, you could see stonework that would predate Celtic times and look right through it and see when these things were altered.” It was these observations of man-made refinements that sparked Adams to resume painting. And like the layered swaths of history he observed in France, Adams sought to give his own canvases the same texture and physicality. Since then, he’s created a body of abstract art he calls spiritual landscapes. The paintings, Adams said, illustrate the metaphor of how he relates to the world and how mankind alters and molds the face of history. A sampling of Adams’ work is now on display at Gallery One, 5133 Harding Pike. The show, Angles on Abstract, highlights the varied and distinctive approaches to abstract art by painters Adams, Boston-based Katharina Chapuis, and Christina Doelling of Atlanta. Shelley Liles, Gallery One’s owner, said she produced the show out of her desire to showcase this style, which has gotten a lot of recent attention in the art world. As artists push its boundaries and evolve the style, it remains aesthetically attractive and accessible to audiences. Abstract art is also a personal favorite of Liles, who opened Gallery One a year-and-a-half ago as a career reinvention following almost two decades in the journalism and marketing fields. “I think there’s an intuitive, gut reaction to the freeness and emotional aspect of abstract art, and with these artists you feel it,” Liles said. While the artists’ approaches may vary, threads of similarity sew the artists’ pieces together into a balanced show. Chapuis and Doelling, for example, share Adams’ affinity for layers and textures but demonstrate it through different techniques. Adams will paint an image in acrylic and then peel, scrap, sand or strip the paint off — repeating this sometimes up to a dozen times. At some places on his canvas, the surface may be paper-thin, with other areas as thick as a quarter-inch with paint. “That layer will have a series of marks that would be left and those add up on top of each other, and the layers begin to look like they’ve evolved and result in an image. I stop when it starts to correspond with something in my mind, a memory, or something that I recognize — a particular mass of color, a particular place,” Adams said. Meanwhile, Chapuis paints in luminous expanses of color, but infuses the oil paint with plaster, which she later sands down. Left behind are transparent layers of oil paint and deckled edges that look like worn paper. Doelling also places emphasis on bold colors but uses quick brush strokes and generous dashes of paint for texture. The geometric shapes and charcoal-drawn lines create the exhibit’s sharpest lines. “I hope the bold color and movement of the works elicit some kind of emotional response or reaction [to the pieces.] That’s part of their beauty — they don’t have to be over analyzed, just enjoyed,” Liles said. What: Angles on Abstract art exhibit When: Through Sept. 23; 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays Where: Gallery One, 5133 Harding Pike Cost: Free and open to the public Info: 352-3006; galleryone.biz |