Ena Swansea
By DEBORAH GARWOOD
Notes on Individual Paintings
Portal,
2003
Like the Foreword to a book, the first painting one encounters while
walking up the ramp to the gallery is a predominately dark canvas depicting
a woman walking from sunlit greenery outdoors toward the dim metallic
interior of a passageway. With her conservative attire of shirtwaist
dress, purse, and heels, she could be entering a clinic and the gallery
simultaneously, like the viewer. We enter the painter's space together,
perhaps.
Ena Swansea Undecided,
2001-2002
lead, oil on linen, 38 x 90 inches
This and all images courtesy Klemens Gasser and Tanja Grunert, Inc.,
New York
Undecided, 2001-2002
A horizontally formatted depiction of a conversation between a woman
and a man, rendered in transparent colors over a an oily black ground
that switches like the nap of shiny velvet as the viewer moves around
to see it. The blonde woman, suburbanly coiffed, has just spoken to
him. His back is turned, one ear bright pink from the sound of her voice.
Two black lines echo between them. Perhaps it's better that we can't
hear what she said, what he heard, and so on.
Luncheon on the
Grass
2003
graphite, oil on linen, 108 x 78 inches
Luncheon on the
Grass, 2003
A monumental female figure crouches above a mecurial graphite field.
She is seen from the back, from a hovering elevation, a schema rendered
in close values accented by a few colorized highlights. A big brush
describes her hair in burnt sienna, cut with bluish motor oil from certain
angles, caught in a ponytail held by red elastic. The brush brakes for
a pale ear, strokes the supple back, glides along a downy arm and, upon
arriving at the model's tennis wrist, reduces scale and halts in an
attitude of erotic attention while bestowing an expensive watch. This
negligent hand holds a picnic plate with a spoon glowing green and red
at the edges, extends from the right knee at the end of its luscious
long thigh. She is a composite: Manet's famous nude luncheoner crossed
with a friend's portrait. Painted by multiple personalities or not,
a ploy that incompletely masks a trained hand, it's clear that Swansea
takes pleasure in her technical facility.
Lie Down I Think
I Want You, 2003
Defying gravity, two torsos stretch, mirror-like, from the left side
of the picture field, on a graphite ground. The topmost, wearing a garment
that looks most like a green choir robe, seems to scrutinize the other
figure inconclusively. Myth like, they suggest Echo and Narcissus.
Antoine,
2002
graphite, oil on cotton, 76 x 72 inches
Antoine, 2002
A single head, a close up three-quarter portrait: set deeply with in
close-hued mineral pigments, her white flecked globular eyes suggest
a sea bird or mammal blinking miserably after an oil spill.
Letter,
2002
graphite, oil on cotton, 36 x 48 inches
The Letter
One painting, not on display but easily taken out of the back, is a
white on black homage to Vermeer called The Letter. Swansea crops the
young woman's face close to the dreaded sheet of paper. She, ghostily
sketched, is visible thanks to a few deft strokes left by a stiff 3-inch
or so brush oozing with white. The brush is negligently, yet specifically,
dragged across her forehead and features in distorted perspective. Her
ears, having read the letter, are "red"; but she maintains
her composure through a new translation of Vermeer's strategy for concentration.
The distinctive pearl drop, tear drop earring on the ear which hears
the news dances with antenna-like powers.
Fourth Marriage 3, 2003
At the white end of the spectrum, a little team of fairies dances through
the cream blue and yellow shadows of lotus, ginkgo, and champagne-glass
shaped flowers - as well as they might in a painting entitled "Fourth
Marriage". The wry humor is upscale: this much paint, cushioned
by an oil-rich medium, slathered over the surface like icing on air.
Here is an optimism that revels in success, space, and outdoor freedoms.
Balanced, optically, to daylight.
Tinyman 1999-2003
lead, oil on linen, 76 x 76 inches
Tiny Man, 1999-2003
The confident big brush swings through the model's coiffure, slips past
her face, rustles under her nightgown, and pops out under an evanescent
line as the upward gazing face of... a tiny, but mature, conservatively
dressed man. Father?
Out of Town until
the 26th,
2003
graphite, oil on linen, 78 x 108 inches
Out of Town Until
the 26th, 2003
The hellish mood of a woman lying prone before an array of windows in
a recovery clinic on a sunny afternoon is matched by a horizontal void
inserted on her couch, as if to suggest that she were tipping into the
crack of doom.. Of course, she never does; but the disposition of painterly
elements is the more devilish for bubble-gum pink highlights stuck to
her chin, lips and nose. Ick! Degas meets Nan Goldin in the glow of
ghastly music hall gaslight, in the harshly lit cinder block asylum..
Man
In It 2001-2003
lead, oil on linen, 114 x 90 inches
Man In It, 2001-2003
A young woman stands in the petal rich breeze, caught in some puzzle-like
grayplanes cutting through the atmosphere. Frank O'Hara's poem, In Memory
of My Feelings, not in pencil but rendered twice: noticeably in hot
pink stenciled letters, then again as mild dropped out text (in more
austere typography) near the bottom of the image, as if fading away
on curved space. The stenciled letters spell out, like an Ouija board:
"My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent and he carries
me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets."
