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THE LARGE PAINTINGS (1991-1992) |
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THE SMALL PAINTINGS (1999-2000) |
PRESS RELEASEChelsea Studio Gallery's inaugural show for the year 2000 presents the first solo exhibition in New York City of the paintings of Agnes de Bethune.
The show consists of two very different but closely connected bodies of work, a series of small informal studies done recently and a major body of large paintings done nearly a decade ago:.
THE LARGE PAINTINGS (1991-1992) There are six large oils on canvas comprising a series painted in 1991-1992 and not ever previously shown in its entirety. Five of these are arranged along one wall in a mural measuring 37 and a half feet. The subject matter for this series is an iron salvage facility on the edge of NY Harbor near the artist's studio. It contains monumental piles of rusting metal in the form of discarded man-made objects..
Although not the main focus, there is an environmental theme implicit in the imagery. It is the return of man-made objects to their elemental form, in this case through the oxidation of iron. The scrap piles, depicted in these images, consist of wrecked cars and heavy equipment, machine parts and demolished structures on a gargantuan scale, bridges and skyscrapers. The sorted metal is shredded into small pieces and then heaped into huge mountains to rust before being shipped on barges to mills where it is recycled back into steel.
THE SMALL PAINTINGS (1999-2000) The 22 small paintings in this exhibition were made between October 1999 and January 2000. They are thematically connected to the work done in the early '90s but, clearly, they run a gamut of technical and stylistic approach. Certainly not one is in the style of the early work, but neither are they like each other. Each painting has to hang together by its own threads. They were done as studies to revisit the subject matter of the earlier work because the artist believed there was still much to explore in the imagery.
This exhibition points out a dramatic change between the early work, which is certainly true to itself on a heroic scale, a tour de force of application and consistency of facture; and the recent work displaying loose, vigorous gesture in a variety of painterly means from thin, aquarelle-like glazes to lush and chunky brushwork in oils. Each picture is a quick, intense moment all by itself. Within the constraints imposed by the square format and consistent size, there is more risk-taking here; these little paintings are a rich offering of experiment and discovery. |
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