Stephen GreeneStephen Greene makes life difficult for critics. There's no one to really compare his paintings to. These new paintings don't fit into any easily categorical slot. Abstract is about it. You want to make the 50s your reference (he passed through having studied with Philip Guston and Max Beckmann) but the frenzied and passionate approach which typified the Abstract Expressionist movement is not at all what these works are about. If a comparison must be made to establish a context, I'll have to mention that there are whispers of Rothko's and Hans Hofmann's flat muted surfaces — blocks of color expanding to blurred edges as they merge with the rest of the composition. Which is where the comparison ends. The 50s sort of urgency is present in some of the quick deliberate brush work but more than wishing to display his emotions, he focuses on composition. His compositions are full blown symphonies of bright color, texture, forms and interaction. Unlike the two artists just mentioned, he goes beyond an attempt at creating an object at which to worship before, at creating one particular mood or effect or movement. His works are more about painting; about how to make a beautiful object by working one section off the next — blurred patches, sweeping arcs, two or three colors over each other scraped with the palette knife, airy dabs like finger painting — so that the overall composition is seen to breathe from the harmonious dependence of all its component parts. They're all surface. There are no tricks or effects to portray depth. All the activity is happening flush up against the picture plane. His colors are a happy range of orange, aqua green, reds and purples set off against the more somber browns and greys. It is the sort of blending noticed barely in nature. It would more likely occur on a TV out of focus, exceeding its capabilities and the viewer on LSD. Or perhaps a view of a section of earth from far up in space, if colors became extraordinary from that range. In some of the paintings a faint hint of leaves or a flower pistil might be discerned but they are interpreted as if arising out of the depths of the cartoon dream, the bright colors swooning to briefly form the image before disassembling into other continuing configurations. These paintings immediately treat the viewer to a nice warm visual bath in sensation and sense. The colors shift so gently in each painting that it's like noticing a change in seasons. |