Wickford Art Association Gallery

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Silhouette
digital color photograph

Striking image. Very, very striking. The soft light, the composition, the sensuality, and the hinted at sexuality of this very pregnant woman. It just draws me in as a viewer. It somehow manages to both be very assertive to me as a viewer but passive. There is a veiled (literally, through the use of the drapes and metaphorically) eroticism that this composition is playing with. I immediately thought of mannerist paintings, particularly mannerist depictions of the female figure. It also reminded me of Lisa Yuskavage, who uses soft lighting and combines sexuality with innocence in depicting female figures. I confess, I don't know or understand what this image and combination of elements add up to, but ultimately, this piece made me want to see more of her work and see where she takes these ideas.

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Scoops
watercolor

I love food. And I love food in artwork. I love food as a metaphor in art and I particularly love sweets and junk food in art. Some of my favorite artists have used sweets as subjects to great effect. Wayne Thiebaud's thick, luscious paintings of cakes, pastries and gumball machines have always inspired me. Felix Gonzalez Torres, the conceptual artist very active in the 80s, used installations of piles of sucking candy to evoke his lover. Food, the act of eating, an also be a metaphor for desire and privilege. Bell Hooks, writes about this in her essay, Eating the Other. But I had to make sure I loved this painting, and not just the fact that it happened to be paintings of food so I walked around a few more times and spent some time with it. It's playful, the colors pop, the composition of the scoops create a great sense of rhythm accentuating the feeling of play. Mariko looks like she had a great time painting this. I hope as much fun as I did experiencing it.

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The Lobsterman
watercolor

I kept walking back to this painting again and again. I have to admit, in a show with a lot of beautiful paintings with ocean themes, this one in particular kept calling me back. The story of the painting felt pleasingly simple, just a man, catching lobsters in a small boat. This was no grand seascape that inspired my awe in nature, just simply a humble man working on a small boat at sea. Also, I love the painting itself. I used to paint and I simply got great joy at Albert's well-placed marks and use of light. Watercolor is hard because you usually want to avoid over painting but I feel his deft and confident paint handling when I look at this.

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Tranquility
photography

Normally, I like very busy crammed compositions, but I was immediately pulled in by how much space there was in this photograph. That the open sky, and the wide landscape invited me, as a viewer, to be part of the composition. By constructing such an open composition, I felt like there was a place for me in it.

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It's Cold
watercolor

To me, art is about stories. Whether it is completely abstract paintings to deeply detailed personal written memoirs, I've always felt that the human impulse to make art across time and cultures, is at some root level, about sharing stories. Watching this tiny boy, overwhelmed by the nature around him, the expanse of water, the ridges, all send my mind racing about possible narratives. I also think it's a great use of contrast, the minimal human presence against the imposing of natural forms.