Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Maude Kerns ~ Composition #22, Sharpness another comparison



The blue background in the painting above is far less structured than the one from Composition #22, Sharpness. Take a look at this painting by Maude Kerns – the internet identifies its current home as the University of Oregon. A logical entry point into the painting is that tiny outlined circle within a circle towards the bottom. Follow the line and you wind your way up and through the painting until you reach nearly the top of the multi-colored circles and squares. Leave that main body of color and it's as if you've taken off into the boundless universe towards the small circles at the paintings' top end. Compared with Composition #22, Sharpness on the left, this painting is almost lyrical. The myriad of triangles, squares and circles include colors ranging from pink through orange, brown and then to green. There's a whole city filled with people and places.

Looking at these two images makes me wish that I had seen the exhibits of Maude Kerns' work last year at the Guestroom Gallery and Katayama Framing. There were seventy two of Maude Kerns work shown at the two locations – watercolors, oils and woodblock prints. From the looks of the thirty thumbnails shown below the exhibit must have been a very good retrospective. Visit the site here.

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