Kitty Klaidman
In this her first one-person show in NYC in four years, Kitty Klaidman, a Washington D.C.-based artist, shows a series of 11 virgin landscapes done in acrylic and oil pastel on paper. The fiesta colors of raw nature at full bloom come jumping out, a child's ideal rainbow colored paradise.
The various views (of the Sierra Bernia region in SW Spain) are figurative in that we see paths, wildflowers, trees, mountains and sky, but Ms. Klaidman's rendered interpretation matches the passionate, even erotic, wildness of the untamed landscapes. These aren't merely careful duplications of a scene. What's careful is her handling the dabs and streaks of color that she never loses control of in shaping the views.
They seem to merge the Cezanne landscapes that showed nature's reduction to the basic geometric forms with the ultra-real technicolor of Looney Tunes.
She builds up the images with patches of shade that delineate the crevices and shadows and rough terrain. The trees and wild grass merge like a recipe in thick brush-stroked dabs, fields, and quick-stroked lines of color and layering.
It's important to emphasize how well she renders the scene interpretable. A detail from one of the works would appear to be totally abstract or like looking at her palette but stepping back it is always a view of a landscape we see. Dimensions and space is as evident as the picture plane fervently covered in paint.
We sense a storm coming as the sky is dark and the wispy stalks of tall grass bend in a strong wind and branches of leaves are pushed till they reach to escape the impending fury. The colors are highlighted to their softest and most primitive hues as the sunlight is filtered through the overcast sky.
The paintings are as fertile as the scenes they interpret.
(Arts, December 1985)