CONCLUSION
Frankenthaler: New
Paintings
By ERIC
GELBER
Driving
East 2002
acrylic on canvas, 52 1/8 x 81½ inches
images courtesy Knoedler & Company
Driving East, 2002
makes you think of a landscape when you first look at it. The bottom
portion resembles a hilly terrain in silhouette, and the rest of the
canvas resembles an open expanse of overcast sky. This interpretation
doesn't take you very far though. Before long, your eyes become lost
in the gently modulated fields of emotive color. This is not a lightweight
sensation. A portentous air hangs about the work. You initially feel
like a specific place is being described, but soon you are overtaken
by a sense of timelessness and isolation; you go from place to no-place.
A number of these paintings (Yoruba, 2002, in particular) recall
the experience of closing your eyes while the sun shines on your face;
when the sun's rays pierce your closed eyelids and your inner eyes become
immersed in throbbing, deep browns, blues, and purples highlighted by
flashes of blood red and rust orange.
Painters experience a unique
sense of joy when they discover an interesting color through the mixing
process. Clearly Frankenthaler is still making art that fits the Greenbergian
mold. She emphasizes "the opacity of the medium." You never
forget you are looking at pigment sponged or brushed onto a surface
when you are looking at these pictures, even though the artist makes
obscure reference to the external world: when earth and sky become blurred
at the horizon line, when air currents tear cloud formations asunder
(Cloud Burst, 2002). Frankenthaler's use of complimentary colors
owes much to the teachings of her old mentor Hans Hofmann. She creates
subtle tensions between blue/purple fields of color and specks of reddish
orange and yellow. Soft bursts of brownish red rise above a large area
of blue-green paint. Hofmann's beloved rectangles definitely come to
mind, but Frankenthaler's visual vocabulary has always leaned towards
the organic.
Yoruba, 2002
acrylic on paper, 40½ x 60½ inches
By saying that there is
a tangible relationship between the works in this show and the paintings
of Hofmann and Rothko I do not mean to denigrate it. These paintings
are a delicious lurefor the eyes. The variation in tone and spontaneous
marks made with brush and sponge prevent these paintings from becoming
monotonous, and the subtle use of complimentary colors creates a weird
sense of depth. There is a definite push and pull on the eyes but this
unique gravitational field is not fully appreciated until you look at
the pictures for an extended period. Subtleties abound. Small touches,
accidental or controlled, appear here and there, and create a tension
between background and foreground. Hofmann did this in his rectangle
paintings, but in a much more muscular, loud fashion.
These abstract paintings
bring to mind those dense and mysterious brown spaces Rembrandt placed
in the backgrounds of his late work. The masterpieces of Analytic Cubism
also come to mind with their multi-faceted and shifting grayish brown
planes, highlighted by fragmented black and white lines. Frankenthaler
forces the viewer to take in the entire picture at once. Analytic Cubist
paintings, the very first "all-over compositions," inspired
many of the New York School painters. Frankenthaler's recent work harkens
back to the origins of these formal breakthroughs, while still feeling
new. Frankenthaler is bravely exploring her psyche, and her maturity
and confidence is revealed through the apparent simplicity of her designs.
On a personal note, a few years back I was in a coma. Instead of seeing
elaborate images of heaven and hell or a slow motion replay of my childhood,
I saw a constant flux of semi-transparent colors and random textures
before I finally awoke. In a similar way, these paintings draw me back
to life.
ERIC
GELBER, assistant editor at artcritical.com, is an artist and critic.
He has also contributed to Sculpture, Artnet and other publications.
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