Consuming Passion

Exhibition

Concord Art Association
Concord, MA

Elizabeth Slayton
Undoing, Oil on canvas, 48″x48″
Leaving, Oil on canvas, 48″x48″

Two large canvases stand next to one another, orange and green. They are spacious and quiet, textured but not busy. If one knows Slayton’s work and her fascination over the years with still-lifes, one sees immediately that these are onions vastly enlarged. One might be inclined to say they are onions seen through a telescope, with gently formed surfaces, almost like strange, distant vegetable planets. But they are friendly planets, interesting and varied, with an appealing atmosphere. Their softly flashing skins create spaces that draw us in. We want to land and explore them, perhaps even settle in and create a home there.

I had seen these in February in an exhibit of Slayton’s work in Newton, but it was refreshing and revealing to see these two iconic pieces displayed here side by side.

Hannah Perrine Mode
Weighed and Sea I (2011), oil on canvas, 30″ x 84″

An odd juxtaposition in this almost diptych draws one in – a half grapefruit held in upturned, cradling palms on the left, and, on the right, a placid landscape. It is an odd and unexpected combination that somehow works. The painting is richly done and shows wonderful variation. The grapefruit and hands are vivid, solid, almost lurid in their weight and color. The landscape, alternatively, is spacious and quiet, almost like a companion piece to Elizabeth Slayton’s onionscapes.

Judith Klausner
Oreo Cameos (2011)

Fabulous sculptures out of Oreo cookie cremes, framed by the cookie. Ingenious, funny, they are all different and artfully done, demonstrating a combination of wizardry and wit.

Tara Sellios
Lessons of Impermanence, Untitled (2009)

I had seen Sellios’ work last spring at Gallery Kayafas in Boston’s South End and was struck then by their vividness and artfulness, as well as by their creepiness. Here, too, are three panels that I recognized almost immediately, signifying something about her distinctive eye. Here, the diptych, shows an elongated duck’s neck, stretching wildly across the joined space. Grotesque, but vivid, and with wonderfully conceived composition.

– BADMan