'TERRA FIRMA'
When: through Dec. 12
Where: Fielding Graduate University, 2112 Santa Barbara St.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday
Information:
898-2947,
www.fielding.edu
Art about landscape is more than an offshoot of Santa
Barbara's art scene, but a coursing trend, relevant to both the natural
beauty of our expanded environs and the conservative tastes of art
lovers hereabouts. And given that inherent and ongoing popularity, the
challenge of putting on a group landscape art show becomes one of
showcasing varietals beneath the umbrella genre.
With the current group show at the Fielding Graduate
University, "Terra Firma," curator Ana Victorson has managed a feat by
ferreting out a group of artists with individual approaches to the
"field." In this enjoyable gathering of art, we get a picture of the
infinite variations possible in landscape art, from realism to the
outskirts of abstraction, from the atmospheric to the precise and
conscientiously representational.
Emerging as the most abstraction-hugging member of the group,
Kathleen Elsey leans away from clean-machined "plein air" aesthetics.
"Rio 3" and "Sedona Sunset" are assemblies of abstract shapes and
gestures, far removed from — yet also noticeably connected to — sources
and patterns of color and light in nature.
While Elsey's work suggests knotty, loud-colored mosaics with
sharp edges, Lizabeth Madal's concept of abstraction is more about
foggy, fluid washes. Madal's "Coastline at Early Evening" conjures up an
impressionistic atmosphere, slicing through the golden and violet
spectra, while "Pathway to Dunes" mixes up hazy swipes with hints of
recognizable vegetation.
Tucked away up the stairs in this wandering gallery space,
Kerri Hedden's "Moonrise at Goleta Beach" is a conspicuously subtle and
impressive piece, its brushstrokes laid down with an understated, dry
and crisp style. Moonshine is reflected in the Goleta slough, but her
optical coolness keeps the image from appearing sentimental, although it
does remind us why this evocative site is such a hit with area
landscape painters.
Kris Buck's small-ish pastels nicely celebrate the carefully orchestrated flora and ambience of the Botanic Gardens.
Another familiar local site and sensation is conveyed in the
largest painting in the show, Barbara Galloway's "Traveling North on
101." With the paintings, the artist captures the feeling of bucolic
spaciousness heading northward on the 101, while adding a gently
fantastical air to the hilly, unhurried vision. Meanwhile, Galloway's
"Clouds Over the Valley 2" is a neatly organized composition that plays
on the contrast of vaporous clouds above and a rainbow-colored patchwork
on land below.
Thomas Mann's "Hillside Oak" splits the difference between
the various strains of loose poetics and faithful "plein air" values in
the show. Mann's understated painting is a simple, stately arboreal
portrait, presenting the notion of a hill-clinging oak tree as an
atavistic protagonist on terra firma. Or else it's just a calm, composed
landscape image. Take your pick. Landscape art is always open to
varying degrees of scrutiny and interpretation.
