Drawing Closer to Nature at the Lutheran Church of the Messiah
By Matthew Farina
Abstract painting influenced by nature is, for the most part, well-explored territory. The recent exhibition Drawing Closer to Nature presented the work of three emerging painters, Lori Hayes, Susan Ross and Melissa Staiger all of whom have escaped the tired stronghold of gestural, gridded or web-like abstractions we’ve seen spawned from rural origins (think Brice Marden drawing with a long stick or Joan Mitchell’s canvases from Vétheuil). The new paintings on view at Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint, Brooklyn have instead turned decidedly toward color and atmosphere as each artist remarks quietly upon their evolving intimacy with the natural world.
Memory and improvisation permeate the production of all three bodies of work. Staiger, the shrewd geometress of the group, makes the most contemporary argument in reference to the natural world – one which leaves behind not only pictorial reference but the insinuation that being in front of her work should feel like being in nature. The reorganization of vibrating colors and sharply acute angles make for interesting visual banter. Neighboring Staiger’s works are paintings by Lori Hayes who lives in Washington. By nightfall, Greenpoint’s McGolrick Park, (situated directly across the street from the exhibition) mimics Hayes’ pictures in veiled smoky go-away grays and russets. Hayes’ paintings certainly don’t do any work for you in terms of context but focus rather on the history of her experience inside and maybe even outside the studio. Extensive surface atmosphere seems to bring the artist herself an arm’s length closer to a nonspecific otherworld, one that still feels personal despite the obscurity.
Susan Ross bridges some of the disparity in mood between Hayes and Staiger’s work. It is important to note that all three artists are members of a girl-only emerging artist collective called tART that has kept them in close dialogue lately through studio visits and an impressive all-member exhibition this summer at A.I.R. Gallery. Ross’s paintings carry a generative fluidity in their clear embrace of form. Without actually being floral per se, Ross is enchanted with nature’s most resilient up-beat colors but cultivates this appreciation through a more staid interlacing of semi-circles and ellipses. Even Lee Krasner would have had a difficult time disliking the overall effect.
Well trodden ground that it is, each painter’s individual communion with a less-urban incubus for painting is refreshing. The artists’ ambitions were commemorated recently by a local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) group which had a sale of organic vegetables within the exhibit. The show itself was installed in the church’s large pale green basement that makes for an odd, if not completely disorienting space to look at contemporary art. While still lost in the thick of it, you couldn’t help but notice all three artists’ modest temperaments and quiet joie de vivre which, after all, you probably didn’t expected to find in the city.
Drawing Closer to Nature closed November 12th. Lutheran Church of the Messiah, 129 Russell Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222. For inquiries please contact Melissa Staiger at 917-923-8096 or melissastaiger@yahoo.com
Matthew Farina is a Brooklyn-based independent curator and artist.
Related Posts
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Thanks for your insightful review!