Review / Informed Opinions

 

July Issue 1998

Feeling light: Laura Loe's Paintings at Hampton III Gallery

A Review

 

by Lese Corrigan

 

Laura Loe's paintings are luscious, loose and precise at the same time, bright, and glowing. Conservative with a contemporary light, personal without sense of invasion, containing signs of a human verses personal intimacy would be additional ways of describing her work. These paintings are all about light and most often warm light - bright, strong light. Cheery color, strong yellows, color fields broken by brush work or a change in direction of the brush stroke provide images of the artist's surroundings and leave the viewer with a warm, lively feeling.

 

Loe, a young artist working in the Richmond, VA, area, calls herself a realist with a loose approach to representation. She refers to an "abstracted reality." There is a bit of a color-field approach with the lack of detailing and the objects cut off at the edges of the paintings leaving no doubt the rooms continue on beyond our experience of them. This is also a reminder of Toulouse Lautrec's work where his figures were so often chopped. This was done as an eye catcher especially in his advertising posters. Like the French Impressionists use of this method which became popular as photography became more accessible, Loe brings us almost photographic imagery in its composition. There is a snapshot sense of a portion of a view captured as a camera viewfinder would show us the world versus the studio painter's planned and controlled composition.

 

Admitting that she changes color at will since realism is not always interesting, the viewer is assisted when viewing Full Studio in which the walls are beige and the floors cadmium yellow whereas in Folding Chairs, a different view of the same studio, the floor is green and the walls have turned a blue in grey shadow. She does not appear to change the color of objects between paintings, only the spaces. This creates a lively exhibition as Loe often paints one scene then another, having turned to her left. This is evident in several paintings. There are expansive room views then smaller close ups or views from another perspective in the same room - Mt. St. Francis Studio correlates with Studio IV 's view of four artists' worktables in the same room - having turned to the left in the large studio room. The paintings were dated one day apart. There is variation with a glazed almost dry brush application to heavy brush work in thick paint.

 

Friday Raining is a precious jewel of a painting of a golden yellow room with a canary yellow chair besides a doorway looking into a red room. The cut off edges of the cabinet and artwork emphasis looking into the bedroom referred to in Lamp in the Red Bedroom where a lamp and a table supporting a glass which contains a pair of scissors are the focal point. Or are they? Loe is inspired by Richard Diebenkorn's work particularly his small painting of scissors open at about the same angle as hers in the glass but reversed in direction. This homage to Diebenkorn and his scissors which she describes as (able to) "hold the attention more than the grandest of landscapes" being such a small part of her painting broadly hints at the complexity of imagery chosen despite the pleasing nature of her work on the simplest of levels when viewed as quick snatches of life - that snapshot view of home and studio interiors or the simple flowers found that day and placed in the nearest receptacle. A documentation of a home and neighborhood can be felt in these cheery paintings. Knowing that the artist changes colors of things at will creates a curiosity as to how much and why. Are the interiors viewed on the linen and board surfaces in reality drab, gray, unlit spaces? A support for this would be Raining with the Lamps On as well as in Friday Raining. The light is bright, no sense of rain, - anyone would hope for that sense of light and color inside on a rainy day.

 

Nimrod is an interior kitchen view painted thickly with cadmium orange outlining the objects which are painted in layers. The counter is bright yellow, the room is large and filled with light. Focus seems to be on stools and chairs standing in waiting whose relaxed linear quality give a lived in, used and relaxed look to the room. In Chair there are chairs facing each other in a studio. Folding Chairs is also a studio view with two empty chairs facing each other, while a third almost has its back turned to the scene and a fourth is cut off. This is the coolest painting in the exhibition as far as color temperature. Chairs and lamps appear to figure prominently in these interior scenes. There are no human figures in the interiors, cats are present in two of the paints with people only shown in the outdoor scenes. Even the partial interior/exterior nature of The New Porch includes no humans.

 

These paintings seem as partial stories - frozen scenes - stills from a movie or better, there is a sense of reading a letter which describes someone's week. In other words, "It was raining on Friday - all day - so I had the lamp on for lighting. The cats were lazy. The day before the sun was glorious and everyone in the neighborhood had played outside. The studio was empty - no work done. We even christened the new porch at lunch. The leaves of the trees which give us privacy were dancing with delight in such splendid sunlight." The exterior view in The New Porch is wonderfully textured full of shimmering light in the trees' leaves forming the background. Springtime Grove is a simple but lively exterior scene. It is a view of the neighborhood - a man mowing, a dog on the lawn, cats around, children on front stoops. Anyone could feel the summer sunshine - a not so hot day - dazzling sunlight - a relaxed day outdoors in almost a late fifties, early sixties environment. This painting shows strongly Edward Hopper's influence on Loe.

 

Neither is there anything simple about Loe's still life paintings. They are minimal in the number of objects present with clean bright colors. There is a fauvist approach to color renditions and color fields in the choices of the hues and their intensity. This is especially noticed in the surface of the water in the flower jar. These paintings of flowers in vases or jars incorporate thicker paint.

 

The more seemingly intimate images by their zoomed in nature such as Corner on Grove shows a corner view of an interior with the mantle and the painting above cut off. A few paintings later is a view where the observer has turned to the left after looking at the mantle. Studio Noteboard is a close up view of a desk and chair with the chair cut off in the right foreground. The noteboard indicates an abstracted view of the personal items - notes, clippings, examples of paintings perhaps dark sketchy outline indicating multiple layers mostly in hiding but not completely obscured from our view.

 

This is a show not to be missed if your eyes delight in seeing fresh new work (the work is dated 1998) full of living and light. These paintings leave one feeling the light and space depicted. Loe quotes Tunis Ponsen - "You know, I just paint the thing I see the way I feel it. I have no particular theories. I just try to paint well." She has accomplished communicating in these paintings how she feels the spaces as the viewer is given these feelings not a clinical detailing of the interiors.

 

The exhibition will continue until mid month at the Hampton III Gallery LTD. at 10 Gallery Centre in Taylors, SC. Call 864-268-2771 for more information.

 

Lese Corrigan is involved in the arts on many levels including creating, teaching, and consulting.

 

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