Most (all?) paintings contain illusions of spatial depth whether or not there is descriptive subject matter. Formal cues to spatial depth exist all along the continuum in landscape painting, which runs from highly descriptive at one end (think Constable) to totally non-objective at the other (think Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Al Held). On this continuum there is a middle point where, in a given work, a stroke or two will shift that work from non-objective to descriptive. And, for an artist, that is a very interesting place to be. In the first show, The Landscape: Described, the artists were dealing with the descriptive end of this continuum and employing subject matter as a major factor (there are many) in providing the illusion of a real or imagined place. In The Landscape: Evoked, artists are working at the non-objective end of the continuum. Since specific references to subject matter are absent, they must rely on other formal cues to create an illusion of space that will be “convincing.”

Marsha Burns, Kimberly Clark, Tamblyn Gawley, Jim Holl, Dale Lindman, Robert Perlman