Statement

“Narratives #3” is a collection that expresses the darkness of winter and the darkness of deeds! Nora Tryon’s “Abundant Potential” start’s this darkness off in a very light manner with her abstractly rendered mono-print of a winter woodland tangle. Her technique brings a unique force to the motif of bare branches as she allows the liquid medium to meander in its own way across the texture of the paper support, creating a nervous veil against the low winter sun. Don Doe livens things up with his “Medusa”, illustrating the dark Greek myth in a loose washy style. His version replaces Perseus with a female, giving his signature fleshy nudes a new narrative and creating a complex interpretation of how this myth of power and psychological struggle might now be interpreted. Cecilia Whittaker-Doe’s “Black Woods” hovers between abstraction and representation with a schismatic composition neatly divided left and right. It thus holds both the dark and the light in tandem creating an almost bifurcated dynamic of tremulous emotional energy. Fabian Haeusermann’s “Old Farmhouse” sets up a shimmering winter scene that is crystal clear and radiant. His technique is to start with an original patterned drawing that he then scans, reduces, draws on again, and reduces and so on until he has built up a dizzying and dense accumulation of structure. The end result is a surprisingly calm yet mesmerizing scene that vibrates and enchants. Kenny Cole’s “Inherent Resolve” takes its title from the U.S. Military’s name for their current operation in Syria. The dark deeds here, laid out with a schematic color palette, are bits and symbols representing the tools of war: the crossed scimitars of the army’s uniform patch, the gently touching finger tips of the power broker, the ubiquitous yet distant air power, a tangle of rope all caught up in the smoke and brimstone. Dividing the scene in two is a candy cane fitness pole, firmly held by a figure situated off camera, suggesting an even darker seaminess to the business of violence.