Andrea Kowch writes in her Mini Paintings blog about her impressions from some of these settings. She then channels them into visual descriptions. Several features distinguish the landscapes and outdoor scenes: reticent realistic palette; angles and slanting lines that accentuate the perspective and play a more symbolic role (see below) as well; joyful and vigorous treatment of space, despite the languorous scenery. But first and foremost these small pieces are about the atmosphere — one of reminiscence and reverie.
Read the rest of this entry »
The polished transcendental look of the magical realist pieces gives way to grittier coloring and more down to earth feel in the book covers. Here blue and gray tones do not symbolize or portend cold and hostility; they depict them as it is, or was — conceived in the authors’ minds. I haven’t read “The Crucible” but I have seen the movie, starring my favorite actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, who was also a relative of Arthur Miller (who himself adapted the play to the screenplay) by marriage. The actor gave an intense performance and I recognize some of that intensity in the image below: one person is determined to oppose an entire community, to either defy or subdue it in God’s name. Because the huts and the houses are only visible on the fringes, it may appear as if the woman’s frame pushes them out, small and shabby, as if by the force of will and personality. Thus the painter effectively condenses one of the major themes of the narrative into a singular composition.
Read the rest of this entry »
Andrea Kowch is an American (Detroit, Michigan) artist who adopted the One Painting a Day practice, citing it as “great discipline and good exercise.” Her daily paintings, usually still life, are workmanlike, but it is the larger pieces where, to my mind, most of the original concepts concentrate. Andrea’s artwork may be seen on her website (currently under construction), on the New Works blog and on the Mini Paintings blog. In this review I would like to discuss the series of paintings inspired by the declared idea of preserving the environment.
Read the rest of this entry »
I like these paintings for their promises of numerous pleasures. Yes, there is the basic familiar satisfaction in watching still life unfold on the panel, — pleasure of the aesthetic kind, simply put, the one which every art lover grows to appreciate with time. However, here its edge dulls somewhat in the presence of the other delights. The first one is that of botanical exploration and discovery: depictions of an inside section of the vegetable and the fruit echoes methodical illustrations from scientific periodicals and publications. The second one is of a culinary sort, namely the recognition of the subjects as potential ingredients. It seems as though the knife that split those figs and artichokes has also divided our attention between those additional layers of visual interpretation and association.
Read the rest of this entry »
Although these obsolete mechanisms were designed for purposes that to some may seem opposing — a conversation with oneself (and the audience) when using the typewriter and a conversation with a different person while talking on a phone — they were both, nevertheless, used as a means of communication. Circles embody that kinship, the geometrical figure being a prevalent visual motif in both pieces. The small circles in both instruments include letters; to be touched and pressed by our fingertips, they point to language as the real communication cord that links us together and allows the exchange of information. In a way, the ostensibly highlighted form in which the letters appear on or below the moving parts of the devices reminds of the progress that language allowed us, as a species, to make. These paintings, depicting tools no longer in use, but once representing that progress, prompt to evaluate the transient nature of technology, and it’s ultimate debt to language, either written or spoken.
Read the rest of this entry »
