Oasis

Yesterday I had the chance to take some time off from thinking about my job, politics and all the other things that have been dominating this blog of late, and go downtown to enjoy my friend Nicole Maynard's show at the Bowery Gallery, Images of Optimism. Her paintings here are mostly nature scenes, from backyard landscapes to close-ups of butterflies, and upon viewing them, one can't help feel a soothing calm.


The painting accompanying this post, Fall III, was one of my favorites in the show. Part of it was just the notion that there's this cycle of life, practically on fire with life, just over the threshold. I was admiring the trees on either side of the painting, and a friend suggested they're a proscenium: they frame the action on stage, as it's presented to us. And like in a play, the action is just beyond the proscenium: A little out of reach, but right there for us to experience just the same.

I walked around some of the other galleries on the floor, and noticed the way some of the other artists showing there approached their landscapes and city scenes; in almost all cases, there was more direct representation between the place and the painting, the sense that one moment has been frozen on canvas. Nicole's recent paintings are different. All shapes and colors and textures, they seem almost taking a step further into memory, as if all other details of the experience outdoors will fall away, and it is only these few keenly felt things that will persist.

What's interesting to me now, a day away from the gallery, is how these painting seem to grow in my memory -- like that fiery hedge, extending beyond the trees that frame it and out of sight.

If you're in New York, you can see Nicole Maynard's Images of Optimism show at The Bowery Gallery through Nov. 22. Otherwise, you can see her paintings every week at her blog, Art Weekly.

Rob