(L to R) Portrait of Anni, 2021, 24h x 6w x 3d in, Verdancy (The Ecchoing Green), 2021, 12.5h x 5.5w x 1.5d inches, Verdancy (hard edge fem I)” 2022, 16h x 6w x 3d in,
Paint on wood
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Statement
The shapes reference vaginas, aka mother earth, the goddess, portals; they are hard edge feminist paintings, experiments in color dynamics, assembled in layers.
The title I’ve borrowed for The Ecchoing Green is from the poem by William Blake. The poem is a contrast of man and nature, birth and death, what is close and what is at a distance in a landscape, and how (green) nature reverberates. (Ecchoing with two c’s is not a misspelling – it is how William Blake spelled the word in his poem of the same name)
This work is inspired by color theorists—Joseph Albers, his book Interaction of Color, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Theory of Colours. Studying Albers has taught me to explore color as a science by keeping a color journal noting my optical reactions and partialities. Goethe’s premise, that color is located in the body, inspires philosophical ideas. The oft-used example of staring at the sun and then looking away to see a residual after-image of color proposed that the body perceives color and produces it. I find this last bit fascinating - the body produces color.
HOLD ON! I am annoyed at my own acceptance of “what is” rather than questioning so-called facts as Linda Nochlin states in her essay “ Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” I am referring to using Joseph Albers and von Goethe as authorities on color theory. When it occurred to me to research/search for any “WOMEN color theorists” two came right up. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Mary Gartside - came before both Albers and Goethe, both wrote and shared theories similar to Albers and Goethe on color. Same old story.
Mary wrote, An Essay on Light and Shade (1805)
Emily wrote, Color problems: A practical manual for the lay student of color (1902).