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You are here: Home / Archives for art reviews by Iskra

Linda Davidson’s “Ormolu” at Catherine Person

December 5, 2010 by Iskra 2 Comments

My experience of gilding is limited to the placid world of calligraphy. Gold leaf fragile as butterfly wings rests on a red pillow. One lifts it to vellum and burnishes it onto a raised glue to form letters and ornaments. There is drama in the lift and the burnish and the potential failure to adhere, but one’s life is not in danger. In contrast, the centuries-old term “Ormolu” refers to the process of applying gold to bronze using fire and mercury. Gilders rarely lived beyond forty.

I can hope that Linda Davidson is with us for twice those years and more. Her current installation at Catherine Person Gallery is breathtaking. It’s the kind of experience that rearranges your braincells and your perception of the world. Nearly five hundred tiny individual paintings reach from floor to ceiling in a symphonic arrangement of blues, grays, true golds and mysterious ochers. There are quotes of the Baroque and fragments of airplane wings, abstract deconstructions juxtaposed with radiant clouds and brewing storms. The pieces soar in a choral progression towards a sky filled with ghosted putti, fragments of halo and exquisite compositions of the solitary image, a feather, a dog, a falling hand. At the bottom and the top bas relief constructions frame the edges, suggesting both the junkyard and the antique treasures of  a forgotten museum.

As Person said after I had been there for the first half hour, (to be followed by another), this is the only exhibit she’s had where people have spent time on their knees and on ladders. Each time you look a new astonishment reveals itself. The range of surfaces includes plaster, mirror, metal, stamped resin, and many I could not determine, and a virtuoso vocabulary of painting methods from muralistic realism to abstract gesture. Some of my favorites were pure pencil on what appeared to be plaster, stunning compositions of line asserted, interrupted and obscured in delicate overlapping layers.

The overall installation works through the genius of juxtaposition and sequences knit into an anthemic whole. But each individual painting is for sale, and in the back of the gallery nails have been thoughtfully provided for the patrons of this work to arrange their selections in various orders. The prices are more than reasonable. The paintings are small, but they redefine scale. Somehow Davidson has mastered the art of composition so that each one is both a successful miniature and monumental, holding your gaze from across the room.

I plan to go back, and I can’t urge you strongly enough to go, absorb this work, and consider taking some part of it to live with you. I felt altered as I drove home along Elliott at sunset. I hope I will be forgiven for posting this small homage, a Linda Davidson sky, my version, taken with my cellphone at dusk.

Filed Under: Art Reviews Tagged With: art reviews by Iskra, Catherine Person Gallery, contemporary Baroque, December art exhibits Seattle, gilding, Linda Davidson, Ormolu

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I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in wh I’ve written a wild-mind sort of blog post in which I let the story of place, museums, witness and culture unfold as it wishes. It’s an old-style post before I had “newsletter consciousness.” (Sigh….when you send out a post with one image and a show announcement and maybe five more words and someone writes, “perfect length to view on my phone” you may be tempted to perform more of the same and forget the original muse, born long before success was judged by how well thoughts fit within 2x5” square inches. A few excerpts here and first link in bio to read the entirety. Witness and elegy is where I seem to live. Painting is acrylic ink on panel, a piece I have yet to resolve but like to see into for the next step.
If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s If you are born on 9.11 take back this day. It’s still yours! Yesterday I started early and went to an island in the middle of the blue sea to be in beauty and celebrate life. As we walked the beach we met a young boy also born on 9.11. His parents had brought him to Vashon for the same reason, and he had found a perfect moon shell for his own birthday present sent from the sea. It was such a lovely moment, to remember the world is young no matter how old we are.
Taking the last golden days of summer for study. T Taking the last golden days of summer for study. The Volunteer Park museum has an exhibit showing the influence of the Edo arts in Japan on Toulouse-Lautrec and I went to see it last weekend. As you can see from these images, I seem to have no interest in Lautrec— True! But these details of woodcuts and paintings on silk fill me with a quiet rapture.
Walking Meditation Walking Meditation
RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid RIP Brian McBride, The Stars of the Lid
Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone Sunday Morning Meditation: River and woods, stone and light.

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