The show has a dozen large paintings or so, dating from the past 15 years. His works may contain different forms — tiny, cell-like squiggles; fat discs; ideographs. But they have at least three things in common: They use every inch of canvas; they're dappled with luminiscent color; they radiate intense light.
His Hieroglyph #1 Blue (1973) is a universe on canvas — every speckled inch covered with tiny pinpricks of color. It's as if the color had emerged from the last gasp of thousands of exploded stars.
With Blue Path In Space (1982), we encounter a vertical format. Long rows of ratchety forms are linked, swaying up and down the canvas. They look a bit like old glyphs. Near the top of the picture, a broad and dramatic "swoosh" of blue paint cuts from one side of the work to the other.
This work produces curious emotions. How to describe its effect on the viewer? Well, imagine you were some tribesman engaged in a ritualistic dance that's suddenly interrupted by the magical appearance of a shooting star.
"People must find their own experience in my work," Pousette-Dart said. I find the evidence of a great past in present paintings. I am also reminded that some attitudes of the past are exactly what is missing in a lot of contemporary work by other artists.
One of those old attitudes holds that painters should always eschew glibness for thought. It is nice to have something to say.
top
|