Judith Brandon
Reviews
Judith Brandon uses abstract paintings to make a clear point about environmental dangers
by Dan Tranberg / Special to The Plain Dealer
Thursday February 21, 2008, 6:00 AMCourtesy of 1point618 Gallery
Water World: Cleveland artist Judith Brandon's new works on paper often suggest dark, watery landscapes, including this one, titled "Aegean Storm." A one-person show of her paintings is up through the end of March at 1point618 Gallery in Cleveland.
REVIEW 1point618 Gallery What: The solo exhibition "Judith Brandon: Black and Blue." When: Through Sunday, March 30. Where: 6421 Detroit Ave., Cleveland. Admission: Free; by appointment only. Call 216-281-1618 or go to www.1point618gallery.com.
ART MATTERS
Seeing the work of local artists mature over the years is one of the great pleasures of keeping a close eye on the area art scene.
As many artists know, it often takes years to develop a body of work in which a particular set of ideas comes together and crystallizes in an exciting new way.
The recent work of Cleveland artist Judith Brandon is one example of this point. Her current solo show, "Judith Brandon: Black and Blue" at 1point618 Gallery on Cleveland's West Side, is the result of more than a decade of the artist grappling with ways of infusing primarily abstract paintings with environmental concerns that depict what she calls "a bruised planet."
Brandon is now creating ominous abstract landscapes, done on paper using a combination of colored ink washes and charcoal, Brandon's new works are full of drama, often suggesting stormy skies over rippled bodies of water. The idea is that the barren landscape has become uninhabitable, presumably as a result of global warming or other environmental disasters.
The real painterly move for Brandon comes from her looser, more experimental way of handling her materials. Many of the works include scribed lines, for example, made with razor blades, which change the way that ink washes respond to the paper. Strange vertical marks appear in some images, looking vaguely corrosive, like acid rain.
With titles such as "Atlantis Is Sinking" and "Water Table," it's not difficult to surmise that the subject of Brandon's paintings is environmentalism. But here she convincingly asserts a more complex message, that the Earth possesses inherent beauty and power, which are at war with destructive forces.
She accomplishes this through an array of techniques and effects, some subtler than others. In "Water Table," a spherical area appears below a placid landscape. The serenity of the scene is offset by the hint of hidden turmoil below the ground.
All this is suggested through relatively simple abstract shapes and marks, which is exactly what makes the image powerful. Rather than literally illustrating a scene of an environmental problem, she has created an image that must be interpreted as such by the viewer.
Brandon's manner of encouraging viewers of her work to think about the issues she raises is one she's been cultivating for many years. Her earlier works of endangered species functioned similarly in this respect, not preaching so much as prompting viewers to take a stand.
In her new work, she continues this kind of activist approach to art-making. The difference is that the paintings, as paintings, are more accomplished and more effective than ever.
Published: February 13, 2008
Subject(s): Cleveland art
NEW
Black and Blue — Judith Brandon's work is about control — and about losing it. It's hard to tell whether the dribbles and streaks of inky color that make up her atmospheric landscapes are serendipitous or the marks of an exceptionally skilled hand. In "Hurricane," she applies horizontal bands of deep indigo that bleed into the bruise-colored washes of the background — dark, soft-edged areas that suggest the silhouettes of storm clouds or trees. In her mixed-media works, Brandon plays with textures, scoring her background paper with long, purposeful strokes that contrast the fluid perimeters of waves, rain, and ice. And she keeps this traditional motif timely: Headlines reporting the most recent weather-related disasters remind us how little control we have over our surroundings. Brandon's celestial paintings are less successful than the otherwise compelling grouping. Dusky waves and a giant golden orb dominate the composition "Yellow Moon With a Western Tide" — A strangely soothing yet stressful image. Through March 30 at 1point618, 6421 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland, 216-281-1618, www.1point618gallery.com. —
EVENINGS OUT
February 1, 2008
Guiding the imagination. Landscapes, abstracts, and a blend of the two
by Anthony Glassman
Cleveland--The reimagining of the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood as a vital arts district is well underway.
“Mark Nutt: Recent Paintings,” which opened on January 19 at Tregoning and Co. Gallery at 1300 West 78th, and Judith Brandon’s “Black and Blue,” opening February 1 at 1point618 Gallery at 6421 Detroit Ave., could very well be the poster children for that rebirth, bringing finely crafted works by two artists to very different spaces. As different as those spaces are, the works are every bit as eclectic.
Nutt, who started his artistic career with sculpture and painting for the theater, began fine art painting just over two years ago. The Maine artist’s work, however, expresses spirituality and insight that grew for years before finding this particular outlet.For his first solo show in the Midwest, he selected an array of works that illustrate a dichotomy, bringing both abstract and realist paintings. Landscapes rub shoulders with daring splashes of color plastered over garnet paste and nails embedded in canvas.
His landscapes have a sense of orthodoxy to them, a certain feeling that, “Here is a tree, a tree is what has been painted.”However, as the viewer continues to look at the work, smaller details begin to emerge. Yes, there is a tree, but what are those little points of red on the ground? Is that a dusting of flowers over on the side?Those landscapes are painted en plein air, outside using natural light, capturing what he sees before him.The abstracts, however, capture the light within him.“Mentally, it’s a very different process,” he said. “I lay out all the colors on my palette, even ones that don’t necessarily belong.”“I go with what I feel, so I gravitate to certain colors,” he continued. “That allows me to some degree to think outside the box. If you limit yourself to blues and greens because that’s what you’re painting, you lose the reds and purples you might not see at first.”
There are some color combinations that one would not normally expect, that intellectually seem to clash--purple and green, blue and orange. However, on the canvases, they flow effortlessly together, creating a phantasmagoria of colors in which fleeting shapes can be seen--faces, forms, creatures soaring and plummeting. Which is not to say they actually exist; more likely, when confronted with seemingly random shapes, the mind supplies them with meaning. It follows the precept of beauty being in the eye of the beholder; apparently, so is meaning.
This dichotomy of realism and abstract, landscape and mindscape, are enmeshed in each of Judith Brandon’s pieces, all of which are surreal landscapes created by the flow of water and dye over distressed paper.While she can create waves so dynamic one almost expects them to move, clouds so pendulous and menacing that a sudden lightning bolt flickering through the frame would be no surprise, moons so full one can feel the tidal pull in the veins, much of her art seems to just happen.
Scoring paper and allowing the dyes to follow the lines, bleeding out into grain of the paper, creates trees on a lakefront. It’s an effortless example of forced recognition; while in Nutt’s work, the brain creates images out of chaos, in Brandon’s work, she nudges the grey cells in the right direction. This amorphous blob? A tree. That one? Smoke rising from an Atlantean building sinking into the ocean.
One dark shape immediately brings to mind the onion domes of Moscow, a nod to Brandon’s tenure in the Tremont neighborhood with its Russian Orthodox church always peering through the gaps between other buildings. Above it, a milky miasma swirls through the night sky, lightening the azure and violet hues. Without glancing at the picture’s title, it’s evident that she has captured the aurora borealis, the Northern Lights.
In her “Cuyahoga Valley Wetland Study,” there is a literalism that belies the surrealism of the piece. Again, it is immediately apparent what one is looking at, but at the same time, none of it is really there, just streaks of color. Entwined throughout the reeds, grasses and water are circles, an ever-present element of her work. Brandon said that the first thing she does with her paper is to make the ring “to remind me of the planet,” of the “layers of the universe.” She says that, in creating the pieces, she comes to the realization, “Oh my God, we’re only this tiny speck in the universe.” Her tiny speck, however, reflects the majesty of the greater sphere, and at times she seems to channel the energy.
“The best days in the studio are when you’re just an instrument,” she said. “The worst are when you really work at it.”
Nutt expressed a similar idea in explaining the genesis of his surrealist paintings. He said that he has to paint, to get the energy inside of him out. Regardless of where their energies come from or what they’re doing, putting aside the methods and the media, these are two shows that should reinforce Detroit Shoreway and Cleveland itself as being on the artistic map.
“Mark Nutt: Recent Paintings” stays through February at Tregoning and Company Gallery, 1300 West 78th Street. For more information, call 216-281-8626 or go to www.TregoningAndCo.com.
“Judith Brandon: Black and Blue” opens with an artist’s reception at 7 pm on February 1 and continues through March 30 at 1point618 Gallery, 6421 Detroit Ave. The gallery can be reached at 216-281-1618 or online at www.1point618gallery.com.