O Insel des Lichts!
Hölderlin 1
Susan Lecky's paintings are islands of light, evoking the rich sonority of color one would expect to emanate from stained glass windows. That is remarkable, for the difference in luminosity between the color produced by transmitted light and the color produced by reflected light is profound. The effect is all the more strong when one sees, as here, an installation of many of her works occupying and inflecting the space of their installation.
Combining geometric structures of repeated and mirrored modules with organic shapes referencing plant forms, Lecky elicits a dialogue of culture and nature. This would seem simple enough; it is rather more subtle. Geometric structure is not simply a domain of culture regarded as that which has its being by human agency, but rather forms underlying structures within nature, regarded as organic and inorganic entities which have their being apart from human agency. Conversely, while the passages of organic shapes reference plant forms, they are distanced from their source material by a substantial level of abstraction. Thus, an aporetic inversion obtains, obviating a simplistic ascription of geometry to culture and organic shape to nature. Of course, within the works themselves, all has its being by human agency, and thus falls within the domain of culture.
Within the works and their component modules, the structural division of space shifts from the image plane to implied depth by difference in the hue, value and intensity of color, by overlapping, and by shifts of scale of line and shapes. One might compare Lecky's means of handling these shifts with analogous moves in early manuscript illumination, e.g., in the Lindesfarne Gospels, carpet-page [British Library London, Cotton MS Nero D.IV, 210 f. v], or the In Principio of St. John's Gospel of the Book of Kells, [Trinity College Dublin MS A.1.6.(58), f. 292]. The disposition and articulation of form equiprimordially entails logic and feeling. One might regard this as entailing a distinction of line and color, as a deferred iteration of the long quarrel of the Poussinistes and Rubenistes. Or one might regard it as a manefestation of Nietzsche's distinction of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. All of that may be, or not. Rather, all of these instances may be manifestations of sense one has of the distinction of the faculties of reason and feeling. Art is a domain in which reason and feeling are one.