FFWD Weekly
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| Visual Arts by Mark Walton Exhibit review Style and taste in the visual arts are constantly changing, and that’s the way it should be. After all, above and beyond everything else, a painting – or at least, in my view, the most interesting ones – usually tend to reveal something about the society that produced them. And so it is with abstract expressionism, which has evolved in many subtle and some not so subtle ways over the second half of this century. Although their basic philosophy remains the same – i.e., a spontaneous response to the outer physical world or inner psychological world – the most recent crop of abstract expressionists have adopted a leaner and meaner approach. Rather than deal with the entire picture field, for instance, the current preference is to place a pared-down form in the center of the canvas; it is as if the artists are less concerned about how forms interrelate with one another and more caught up with exposing the unique identity of a single form or a concentrated cluster of shapes. I enjoy many of the latest developments in the abstract expressionist genre – certainly, I find them more exciting than something like the abstract meanderings of Virginia Cuppaidge at Triangle Gallery. Cuppaidge, who was born in Australia, has devoted herself to abstract expressionist painting since she moved to New York to study art in 1969. At the moment, a sampling of her work from the ’90s is being presented at a limited itinerary of public galleries in this country. Cuppaidge’s brightly colored paintings feature either loosely brushed swatches resembling a patchwork quilt, or freely daubed spots of pigment that sweep across the canvas like a kaleidoscopic jumble of leaves swirling about on an autumn sidewalk. Bearing hokey titles such as "Desert Dusk," they often promote a pseudo ’60s sensibility, especially a work like "When Ships Come In," with its simplistic lime green, orange and yellow shapes and somewhat cliché checkerboard design elements. Despite the chaotic disposition of most of these images, though, Cuppaidge’s paintings don’t seem to possess the energy or raw vitality of better known works in the genre. Nor do her paintings appear fussy or tightly controlled in a quirky interesting way. In fact, they’re quite simply lukewarm; neither hot or cold. Her color schemes, for example, project sort of a garage sale esthetic, a relentless barrage of high-key discordant tones that you would expect from an amateur painter not used to employing broken or mixed color. This is surprising because Cuppaidge is touted as an artist who looks to nature as a source of inspiration for her paintings. Cuppaidge’s smaller gouache paintings on paper are more successful. Although they appear to fall into the mold of ’80s "pattern painting," in terms of composition and color they’re much better focused and down-to-earth. Perhaps part of the problem with this exhibit is that it excludes some of Cuppaidge’s more appealing early works. For instance, a piece such as "Trailing the Perimeter," which shows purplish-grey globes set against a sombre, dark brown background while a spate of multicolored blobs and darts flow across the picture like an asteroid stream in a funky cosmos. Cuppaidge – who is represented by a prestigious New York gallery – is a well-respected artist. Despite what you might think about her fairly conventional paintings, the exhibit still serves to validate the abstract expressionist esthetic which continues to satisfy the creative aspirations of many people on a number of different levels. Is Cuppaidge a flaky run-of-the-mill painter, or do these works make a sincere valuable contribution to a venerable art genre? You be the judge. |
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