|
Jessica Dawson |
|
| A Single Stroke of Inspiration
According to the French photographer Henri Cartier- Bresson's definition of the "decisive moment," a great picture is the convergence, in one frame, of a spark of humanity and a perfect composition. A bike cruising by an intriguing staircase at just the right velocity. A fellow skipping over a puddle with both feet in the air. Ultimately, decisive moments are the intersection of
good luck and a good eye. And James Nares, who is a painter, knows
something of the split-second recognition of a good picture. His
work, like Cartier-Bresson's, depends on preserving just-right moments. |
THAT MISSISSIPPI RIVER
PAINTING |
| The paintings by the
London-born New Yorker begin and end with a single gesture applied in
just a few seconds. He pilots a brush - his are self-made, some as
much as a foot wide - across a white canvas like a plane aborting its
landing: the brush swoops in on the approach, skims the surface and
rises up again. That's it. One color. One wave of the
arm. Done.
Would that it were so easy. It takes Nares from 50 to 300 attempts to achieve the result he wants: a brush stroke with genuine charisma. That happens only when the variables come together - the architecture of the gesture as it sits on the canvas combined with some ineffable zing. The right picture may defy calculation, but if you're Nares, you know it when you see it. And if he's not pleased, the artist puts a squeegee to the surface and takes the ink right off. And tries again. And again. With the brush dipped into the same batch of paint for each go-round, the process turns rhythmic and meditative; Nares becomes a conduit of his own pictures. "When they work, they seem pre-ordained," he says. The time it takes Nares to make a successful painting isn't much more than it takes a photographer to open his shutter. Nares' paintings track a moment and then expand it. As when, the painter says, you witness a car accident. Time expands. And when they're right, as each of his five paintings on view at G Fine Art is, they evoke images beyond their simple selves. A few even look like photographs. The slick ground he builds over the canvas or paper doesn't allow paint to seep in. Instead, the pigment dances on top in rivulets or ribbons. Some involve several seperate brush strokes - three perhaps - that could be slips of satin whipping in the wind. But the standout piece here, for sheer bravado, is the nearly seven-foot crimson "That Mississippi River Painting." Despite the title, those splashes of paint jutting off seem nearly caligraphic - the rich red pigment evokes the art of Asia, and the arching shape of the thing looks like a Chinese dragon off some dynastic scroll. If Nares catalogues the decisive gesture, then Maggie Michael, who is also showiung at G........ |
|
