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| © 2012 modaustin.net all rights reserved. |
| Jane Mattingly - Art Contributor for modaustin.net writes a regular blog regularmain.com focusing on Texas Artists. |
| Special "EYE" to Watch by June Mattingly // regularmain.com Erin Curtis “Ornament of Savage Tribes” at Champion Gallery through February 19 (Barry Stone who has a show in the other space will be written up following his show opens at the Austin Museum of Art) |
| ”Apartment Building,” 2010, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 108 inches |
| To abstract for a work of art, definitely not for a deep thought, could start with a face or a still life and making several versions of those images that grow increasingly less close to reality as particulars like perspective, images and shapes slowly are less obvious or less and less representational as the process proceeds. For instance, using a cityscape like in one of Erin’s, recognizable immobile architectural symbols with each drawing or at each stage become more abstract yet the viewer still sees contemporary institutional buildings abstractly and might not identify them as such without looking at each work’s title. |
| “Curtis’ paintings achieve a kaleidoscopic tension trembling with promise and confusion.” Erin was born in upstate New York in 1977 and stayed in frigid weather to graduate from Williams College with a BA. She warmed up in Austin at the University of Texas where she received a BFA. On her resume are solos at Women and Their Work and MASS galleries in Austin and at Lawndale Art Center in Houston. In 2008-2009 Erin was a Fulbright Scholar in Jaipur, Rajasthan, and in the summer of 2010 she attended the Skowhegan School in Maine. |
| In Erin’s art’s case, harmonizing colorful and repetitive geometric patterns lacking volumetric perspective now assume the responsibility of describing and revitalizing in full the actual objects’ outlines. She also creates free-hanging provocative ornamental panels, in reality imitating tapestries with no immediate identifiable source for the designs, except for the title of the show. All of her vigorous paintings’ implicit connection to the wall is challenged by configuring the canvasses double-sided while lending them objectivity, three- dimensionality and increased physicality. |
| Champion 800 Brazos St Austin, TX 78701 512 354 1035 championcontemporary.com |
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