Pat Steir “Blue River”
National Academy
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Pat Steir: Blue River, an installation of four paintings, is presented as a contemporary counterpoint to the concurrent exhibition, William Trost Richards: Visions of Land and Sea. Steir has engaged with the subject of water since it first began to appear in her paintings of the early 1970s. By the mid-1980s she had created a series of Wave paintings that relied on a circular gesture of the brush to capture the essence of water in motion. Near the end of that decade Steir adopted a different approach to painting by pouring, flinging, and dripping paint onto the canvas, embracing the inherent fluidity of the medium. By incorporating chance and utilizing gravity in the process, she essentially allowed the paintings to make themselves. The result was a body of work that became Steir’s signature Waterfall paintings.
In this installation several of the artist’s most recent works from her Waterfall series are paired with the enormous and seemingly boundless work, Blue River. On the subject of water Steir has stated: “I paint water often, but don’t depict it; it is the paint itself that flows.” Indeed, these monumental paintings depict more than simply the fluidity of water and paint and also suggest a metaphysical place in which states of being ebb and flow over time. For the artist, these paintings are explorations of contemplative space. They are immense, durational, and experiential not only through their sheer size but also through their inherent gestural and evocative qualities. Ultimately, they envelop the viewer and allow us to become lost in an inner space.
Media
Schedule
from May 23, 2013 to September 08, 2013