|
The Power of Suggestion - John Fineran |
|
|
Solo
Show
An exhibition of paintings by Jacky Lee at Ashbourne Gallery Tregoning Fine Art |
|
|
This is an exuberant display of radiant, even luminous abstracts aided
and abetted by the sun-filled, high ceilinged gallery in the former
Ashbourne Hall. These are abstracts with many a difference - no hint of ponderous over-seriousness so often the mark of abstraction - rather of beguiling colour, movement and vitality. Some 30 box-canvas oils confidently assert their relevance to life and source with titles such as Driftwood, Oasis, Water's Edge, Echoes and so on. Evocative rather than specific,these titles encourage speculation and conjecture, the viewer well able to imagine connections or suspect references to nature, the human form, the vastness of earth or sky - or some object or phenomenon less than a foot square. These expansive and muscular works are also very much about themselves - paint, surface and illusion. Lee is a superb colourist. she exploits
|
huge expanses of pigment. Deep
rust Indian Red challenges sleepy subtle ochres; cold arctic blues sing
with chill lemon yellows. All surfaces are matt to the point of dryness,
yet nothing of the intensity of colour is lost. Intelligence is abroad, as well as feeling, the artist creating effects of voids or distance - with colour alone, flouting the convention of the picture plane. Is the swirl of The Pool suggesting the illimitable depths of a vast cold and sinister lake, or the petty disturbance of a tiny garden pond? Is the nucleus within The Source - arguably the best painting in the exhibition - the nub of All, the juddering spherical ovum of mystery and matter, or is it a small single cell of spawn getting rather above itself? Either way it is truly impressive in its suggestiveness. It is this power of suggestion that lingers in the mind.
|
