Installation view, Eleanor Ray, 2024
Photo Courtesy of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery
As one enters the large gallery space with miniature paintings confined to the gallery walls, one is irresistibly drawn to them. They immediately communicate - to consider them slowly. Eleanor Ray's paintings on view at Nicelle Beauchene gallery are deceptively expansive. The long discourse about size bias is radically challenged through Ray's small paintings. All the paintings are around 6 x 9 inches. Tight cropping is the cornerstone of the compositions. Ray's pedantic eye for cropping the paintings create for an expansive, brilliant experience while paradoxically being tiny pieces. Ray's process involves drawing and painting extensively plein-air and carrying the paintings back to her studio to work on them further, where they continue to evolve.
Ray appears to be in the lineage of the much loved tonalist painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. The moody landscapes of Ray and Ryder seem to have a deeper quality rather than being only pictorial wonders, evoking sensorial realities. Both Ray and Ryder seem to share a poetic genius.
Albert Pinkham Ryder, Gay Head, (not dated), 7 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches, oil on canvas
Photo Courtesy of The Phillips Collection
In Ray's ‘Afternoon, Hellnar,’ 2024, the viewer chances upon the vastness of a waterbody with a mountain range in far sight. The beautiful, cool blue hues of the water and the mountain range in the backdrop are in perfect harmony with the marshy greenscape on the banks of the waterbody. 'Cloud Forest door,’ 2024 is one of the few pieces in the show that situate the viewers in an indoor space. The painting depicts a door opening to a wide expanse of a greenscape and speculatively a mountain, portraying a yearning of the outside. The paintings are a journal of her trips to various places. In a way, these paintings can be thought of as memorabilia.
- Priyanka Dey (#)
I love the way you draw connection from one artist to another - it demonstrates your personal interest and connection to these pieces ! I believe there could be one more sentence added at the end to tie the writing together, but I deeply enjoyed this review. It gives me a newfound appreciation for landscapes!
ReplyDelete