Personal Geometry: Works by David Carlson, Betsy Damos, Francie Hester, Kathy Snow Stratton, Carol Brown Goldberg and Lynda Ray
CURATOR'S STATEMENT

Artists have always drawn inspiration, format and subject from the world of geometry. Throughout history many art movements have geometric concepts or structures at their root or as a major component in some way. In general, much geometrically related work is pristine, hard-edged and detached. Personal Geometry brings together the work of six artists who incorporate geometry, either conceptually or as a central compositional structure, while also including elements or techniques that allow for personal expression. In so doing, the duality between structure and order and expressive spontaneity is highlighted.

David Carlson creates jubilant and complex abstract compositions in which geometric shapes, most notably the circle or sphere, are used both as compositional anchors and for their metaphorical significance. Delicate and sensitive line work is used to build texture and to create depth and is coupled with hard-edged shapes and open space creating a visual dynamic of both harmony and dissonance. Working from a strong interest in eastern philosophy and religion, Carlson sees his paintings as organic depictions of psychological space.

Betsy Damos’ paintings are created by layering transparent colors and simple geometric shapes or grids over a base consisting of a drawing/painting fragment taken from the natural world. Expressively rendered, the images are then seen through the window created both by the edges of the geometric elements and changing transparent films of color. Intended as a metaphor for how we view the environment and the many issues that surround it, the paintings are also elegant statements about the relationship between the organic and the geometric.

Francie Hester’s series of paintings on aluminum entitled “Vestige” are geometric in format and bisected by hard-edged vertical or horizontal lines of varying widths. These clear expanses of color or surface contrast with areas that have been heavily “worked” by the artist- drilled, painted, sanded and polished. Metaphorically referencing the layers of experience that compose a life, the contrast between clarity and complexity, between that which has been lived and that which is yet to come, is explored.

Kathy Snow Stratton’s paintings claim their geometric relation through the edges of the canvas and the subtle, grid-like structure that grounds the all- over surface composition. These paintings are spiritual or cosmological in nature, expressing infinite space through the rhythm of pattern and the build up of calligraphic line. Notably, it is “the space between” rather than the gesture itself that most interests the artist. This endeavor is both uniquely personal and universal in its scope.

Carol Brown Goldberg’s large- scale paintings highlight the interplay between surface and space with both elegance and dynamism. Using rectangles and circles as navigational tools, she leads the viewer from plane to plane as she juxtaposes structure with spontaneous movement. The dual nature of the universe is directly mirrored in Goldberg’s paint application methods as well, as she moves between careful order and free and loose expression.

Like many of the artists in the exhibition, Lynda Ray finds inspiration in the natural world and the many intricate patterns that exist there. Honeycombs, faceted crystals and rafts of bubbles are but a few of the visual stimuli she translates onto her canvases using thick encaustic paint. These patterns come together in rhythm and repetition as she seeks to “explore the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm”. The works assert themselves both as geometric abstraction, surface and pattern, and as expressively layered, fully dimensional objects.

Seen together in the gallery, the work of these six painters is notable for the variety of scope, scale and approaches encompassed. Yet each artist is working from the same basic toolbox- the elegant simplicity and structure of geometry and the fluid, malleable nature of paint, with all its expressive capabilities and possibilities. Each, in their own inimitable way, is making the most of the sparks that inevitably fly when one meets the other.

Nancy Sausser, Curator
Exhibitions Director, McLean Project for the Arts