IMMERSED

by Jeanette Fintz

There are certain moments on certain days in certain places that are memorable, if one is lucky enough to be aware enough to be witness to them—-that are so sublime as to take you momentarily out of your ordinary state and drown you in sensation. Happily lost, perhaps this shower of delight or awe lasts only long enough for you to catch up to your workaday self to prevent you from stepping off the curb into on-coming traffic.

Ashley Garrett’s paintings in the show entitled Ambrosia at September Gallery are aiming to impart to the viewer that experience. Experience is the key word, for Ashley’s works are not pleinair pieces painted from the eye “but what an EYE “, of Monet and the Impressionists, but from mind/body memory of a situation. The canvas support is there to catch the bits of sensations that have lodged in the nerves and muscles and brain of Ashley.

This sounds like they could almost be choregraphed into a dance, but unlike the Action Painting school of Abstract Expressionism the rhythmic self - referential and directive strokes that build up surface in those works, thereby moving your attention from place to place to balance the visual field, do not top the agenda. That’s not to say the paintings don’t do those things or possess many powerfully placed brushstrokes. But the real agenda is to bring forth and transmit the memory of total immersion in nature, that Umwelt of one of Ashley’s marvelous titles, that includes but is not limited to the visual sense.

Abstract Impressionism coming in on the coattails of Abstract Expressionism and heavy on the optical vibrations and broken mark-making of impressionism, combined the two genres and fits a bit more comfortably as an antecedent to Garrett’s painting approach. But her intention isn’t to dazzle the eye, though many pieces do, or construct something nearly solid from particulate matter, but to bring together through recall of incident and feeling, a convincing and transporting experience shared between herself and the viewer.

The very smallest of Garrett’s paintings often done on paper, reduce a moment to its essence and like a haiku they exist to savor for the future the memory associated with that sensation, triggered by that shape of shadow or dance of grasses at twilight. And that’s all you get. It’s not a sonnet it’s a haiku. You, the participant sharing the moment must bring to the piece your own memory of a such tremor of light and animate it with your associations thus prolonging, and still catalyzed by it.

In the opposing size category, I was intrigued by the tall vertical paintings in the show, like Flume and Verge for how they indicated the location of a sensate presence at about human scale, without precisely forming one. The realization of this locus has to do with how Garrett develops, through brushy distribution of colored marks or the placement of streaks of shadow, the sense of peripheral vision of a witness. Color theorists claim that color appears more saturated when seen from the corner of the eye rather than frontally. Ashley gathers her inspiration for the paintings by walking in nature. Notably in the paintings, little flickers and vibrations spread out and surround the hypothetical walker in nature with context, pressing forward as a curved space, shifting as she moves, no solid ground but an accretion of glimmers marking her progress. I was struck by how little ground solidity or concern for the ground there actually was in these and others of the smaller paintings on canvas. A consciousness merged with the effulgent glow is what I take away from these.

Garrett uses a varied, responsive vocabulary of stokes and marks that often are determined by a feeling of what needs to happen in that zone of her canvas rather than as descriptive of a particular plant or tree or grass. One of my favorite pieces, Henbane, has a very active lower portioncan’t really call it a foreground (but almost, notable for that itself), constructed from accretions of a full range of softly neutral colors in joyful, curling densely packed gestures. That lower portion is so physically present that it rises up and forward to fill half the painting while the top portion of this square format is stabilized by a deep purple shadow shape nearly smack center. It’s a very satisfying and mysterious resolution both for its opacity in the context of so much softly blurring complementary colors, and, also, for its definition. It immediately recalled a thematic shape in Virginia Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse” in which the landscape painter Lily Briscoe is preoccupied by a shadow shape in her composition, which ultimately recalls and symbolically resolves, through her deeply internalized connection to it, the events of a past summer idyl and the intervening events spanning a decade later.

This brings up the subject of time which is implicit in all landscape paintings and is very much part of Garrett’s concerns. The sense of summer and warmth captured through a palette of soft complementary colors of yellows and blues can be found in many pieces in this show. The paintings that intrigue me are the ones that are creating a half - light reminiscent of twilight, a liminal zone where shadow can shift from warm to cool and as dusk sets in, the environment becomes an opalescent shimmer. Painted grounds of muddy neutral blue start glowing against deeper more saturated blues, greens, and oranges in paintings like

Chiral and Umbra. Since these weren’t painted from life the time it takes to build up the color and for it to create a world is the time in the piece, I would suggest, depicting a suspended inner world which is non - specific and timeless. Henbane, Chiral and Scintilla all contain that value key called extended middle minor that transmits an eerie transitional mood. Vespertine, one of the several still life paintings have that wide range of dark middle values and more, balancing the rich darks against splotchy emphatic off - white strokes, pulling one of the most dramatic contrasts in the show. Another high contrast piece is the bracing, gestural Freshet, a large vertical painting in a major key.

Garrett often composes using a softly arcing diagonal movement in smaller works like Umwelt and longer verticals as Freshet and Verge that keep the picture plane mostly frontal, and very slightly receding into space. Two of my favorite small ones, Umbra and Chiral do the exact opposite, throwing the viewer right into a thicket of Continued on next page...

middle ground energetic markings and tangles of strokes. The larger scale off-white marks sitting on top of and moving across the surface in Umbra push back against all that bristling providing a foil and some temperamental distance by setting up a new spatial level in relation to the color beneath.

There has been some discussion comparing Garrett’s paintings and those of Joan Mitchell the great second - generation Abstract Expressionist. I see some similarities of color palette and indirectly something comparable with respect to their in-studio rather than plein-air production process, but for me that’s where it ends. Focusing on the quality and variety of brushwork; In her large major paintings, Mitchell used a vocabulary of similar size and type of strokes, grouped together to build semipermeable zones or walls of colored marks. To my mind, they are premeditated, and quite assertively directive even while the color is wooing the viewer with shimmers of nature. Garrett’s color and stroke come from a more internalized source. They project an intimate spontaneity, sometimes even appearing awkward and tentative. And they feel honest. The diversity of approach to stroke and surface can be viewed as both a strength and a weakness, depending upon one’s inclination. There is courage and confidence in that tentativeness. In all their glory Mitchell’s paintings feel like they were produced for the viewer. Garrett’s feel like they were done for herself.

Ashley Garrett (b. 1984) graduated with a BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Love Apple Art Space (Ghent, NY), Gold Montclair (Montclair, NJ), Hood Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Chase Gallery (West Hartford, CT), SRO (Brooklyn, NY), RISD Memorial Hall Gallery (Providence, RI), and SEPTEMBER (Hudson, NY). Garrett has participated in group exhibitions at Ladies’ Room (Los Angeles, CA), Katonah Museum (Katonah, NY), Regina Rex (New York, NY), The Painting Center (New York, NY), Planthouse (New York, NY), Orgy Park (Brooklyn, NY), Torrance Art Museum (Los Angeles, CA), Geoffrey Young Gallery (Great Barrington, MA), , CA), Cross Contemporary Art (Saugerties, NY), Every Woman Biennial (New York, NY), Brian Morris Gallery (New York, NY), Schema Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Berkshire Museum (Pittsfield, MA), Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (Woodstock, NY) , Berkshire Botanical Garden Leonhardt Gallery (Stockbridge, MA), Hudson Hall (Hudson, NY). Garrett’s work has been reviewed by The

Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, and Caesura Magazine, among others, and the artist has been interviewed by Gorky’s Granddaughter, Art Spiel. Ashley Garrett lives and works in East Chatham, NY.

Ambrosia Show dates: July10 - July 30, 2023. SEPTEMBER 4 HUDSON STREET #3, KINDERHOOK NY 12106 SEPTEMBERGALLERY.COM

Hours: Thursday & Friday11-5pm, Saturday 10- 5pm Sunday 11-4pm And by appointment. Contact: kristen@septembergallery.com dominique@septembergallery.com

Jeanette Fintz is painter of geometric abstraction, an arts writer and sometime curator who resides in Hudson NY. She is represented by The Lockwood Gallery, Kingston NY, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY, & Carrie Chen Gallery, Great Barrington MA. Her recent unstretched collaged paintings were featured in BUILT at The Lockwood Gallery through July 30 2023.

TW McClelland has been making jewelry for over fifty years. His work is known the world over by jewelry connoisseurs and those who seek out originality, beauty, and quality. Engagement rings from his Wildflower Collection are worn by editors of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W, Town & Country, Martha Stewart Weddings, and acclaimed by many more.

In addition, his original pieces have adorned the red carpets of the Oscars and Cannes. In his work Tim is inspired by nature, light, and humor, and traditional metalworking methods. He uses his jewelry to create a joyful expression in a tiny space.

Most importantly, Tim hopes to be of service to his community, his customers, and the world around him.

Please see the website and feel free to contact TWM directly in relation to all things jewelry.

TW McClelland -

413-645-3399 info@twmcclelland.com www.twmcclelland.com

Artist Marion H. Grant is a member of Clock Tower Artists, and can be found most days working in her studio (no. 305) at Clock Tower Business Park, 75 South Church Street, Pittsfield, MA

Her current work in mixed media on paper and canvas combines textural materials, hand-painted papers, acrylic paint, and fabric in abstract compositions that that explore colors, patterns, and shapes.

About the work, Grant says, “My recent pieces reflect my ongoing interest in the interplay of geometric shapes, color relationships, and embellishments such as texture and drawing. Viewed as a whole, the paintings have unity; viewed up close, every element stands on its own as a unique passage.”

Grant’s studio at the Clock Tower is open to the public the first Friday and Saturday of each month April through December. Public hours on first Fridays are 5-8 and first Saturdays 11-4. Private visits to the studio can also be arranged by contacting the artist directly.

This fall, Grant will be showing with four other artists in the juried exhibition, “Veiled,” opening September 16 at the Becket Arts Center, 7 Brooker Hill Road, Becket, MA.

Marion H. Grantweb: www.mariongrantart insta: @marionh.grant email: grants3@earthlink.net

The three drawings from the “Branch Shadow” series of eight drawings became an entryway into reinstituting my routine in a new studio attached to new living quarters. I moved from a rural community where I had lived for forty-two years into a condominium in a small city forty minutes driving time away. The year and a half, before these drawings were made, was spent sorting, packing, moving, and resettling. The trauma of lifting myself out of a true home into a new unused one, in the midst of Covid to boot, had a tremendous impact on my incentive to create anything. Resettling involved accepting my new circumstances and putting my mind to rest.

The “Branch Shadow” drawings reflect my longing for a natural environment. They manifest a conversion of non-referential lines, which I had employed for decades, into lines referencing a dead branch, which, on their own terms, fly off into a realm of unrecognizable form. I have employed my naturalistic lines as a means of visual storytelling.

Lyn Horton -

https://lynhorton.net/ http://www.crossmackenzie.com/ https://www.instagram.com/lynhortonphotoart/

Ilene is an established fine art figurative painter. She is known for her expressive and colorful paintings and her use of lines, which has become a signature style of her work. Ilene’s work is highly consistent and recognizable. Working as a published children’s book illustrator for many years has helped Ilene create a narrative with her work, which often features people in whimsical and fantastical situations.

Ilene is a Past Board Member of the National Association of Women Artists and an artist member of the Rockport Artist Association and Museum.

Ilene Richard –978-621-4986, www.ilenerichard.com, ilene.richard@gmail.com, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ilene-Richard-IllustratorPainter/109216825770985

Watercolor painting, mixed media, and a practice of drawing from life form the body of Carolyn Newberger’s work, with an emphasis on human connections and experience.

An avid and award-winning artist in her youth, Carolyn returned to art after an academic career in psychology at Harvard Medical School. Her work has received many awards, including from the Danforth Museum of Art, the Cambridge Art Association, Watercolor Magazine, and the New England Watercolor Society, of which she is a signature member.

Many of Carolyn’s performance drawings and plein air paintings accompany reviews and essays she writes, often in collaboration with her husband, Eli, for “The Berkshire Edge,” a publication of news, arts and ideas in Western Massachusetts. Carolyn Newberger— 617-877-5672; cnewberger@me.com www.carolynnewberger.com