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www.lagunajournal.com
“Illuminations” Exhibit at
OCMA reveals light and insight into
four prominent women artists
By Lydia
E. Ringwald
The art work is by
Agnes Pelton
Title - 'First Spring Garland'
‘Illuminations,’ an exhibit of the art of four
prominent American women artists; Georgia
O’Keefe, Agnes Pelton, Mildred Pierce and Agnes
Martin, has been extended at the Orange County
Museum of Art to September 19. There are a few
more days to see this rare collection of the
works at the Orange County Museum of Art.
The title of the exhibit, “Illumination, “ is
also the theme that binds four artists who
independently explored the subtleties of light
and innuendoes of luminosity separately in their
own unique mediums. When exhibited in an
ensemble on adjacent gallery wall spaces, each
artist’s work seems to cast light on the others
generating visual conversation of insight and
delight.
Exhibition curator and OCMA Director of
Exhibitions Karen Moss has installed to the
works of O’Keefe and Pelton, both in parallel in
time periods, next to each other and the work of
Miller and Pierce who share a later parallel
time line, in an adjacent gallery space. Films
about the artists are projected in two separate
rooms linked by a biographical time-line at the
entry of the gallery exhibition space.
The curator’s selection of these four artists
also creates it’s own pattern. Although O’Keefe
and Martin were well known and lauded during
their time, the unique OCMA exhibit brings into
light works of lesser known Pelton and Florence
Miller Pierce in conjunction with their two
well-known contemporaries. The ‘Illuminations’
exhibit I an opportunity to view a very rare
collection of Agnes Pelton’s work, a unique
American woman artist who lived in obscurity
much of her artistic life and whose genius is
finally coming to ‘light.’
The placement of several of the artist’s works
next to each other is also an invitation to
explore similarities, parallels and opposing
directions. The Georgia O’Keefe’s works that
explore the mid-day light of a desert landscape
and naked realities of bones or skulls in a dry
and barren terrain reveal her stark often black
and white tinged aesthetic in contrast to the
emotional coloration and spirituality that is
distinctive to Pelton’s artistic vision.
In contrast to O’Keefe’s artistic focus on the
material world, Pelton’s canvases seem to exist
in a metaphysical world that is evoked from
emotions, shaped with color and infused with
feeling and spirituality. Gradations of color
generate emerging shapes that characterize
Pelton’s abstractions. Light descends into the
visible through a crescendo and decrescendo of
coloration. A pure pink hue may descend into a
pure blue through a transition of various subtle
stages and mixtures until it inevitably arrives
at what it ‘is.’
Pelton is loyal to a visual vocabulary of color.
In this way, she seems to remain kindred with
the color aesthetics of Impressionism in
contrast to O’Keefe, who embraces the black and
white aesthetics of a modern industrial world.
Although parallel in time, it seems that O’Keefe
and Pelton actually never crossed paths. Both
artists studied with Arthur Wesley Dow and both
sojourned in New Mexico and stayed at Marble
Dodge Stern’s ranch always missing each other by
a few years. Because of their kindred
transcendental philosophy, Pelton shares more
with Pierce who appeared on the art world a
generation later. Also Agnes Pelton and Agnes
Martin share a knowledge of visual luminosity
that transcends differences of time and
location.
Yet, amongst contrasts, similarities between
Pelton’s and O’Keefe’s work are also apparent.
Exhibit curator Karen Moss’ artful placement of
Georgia O’Keefe’s ‘A Day with Juan l” and Agnes
Pelton’s ‘Light Center’ reveals the similar
color scheme and composition in the works of
these two artists that were completed at the end
of their respective artistic careers. Both
paintings share a similar composition; borders
of light blue with an emerging grey center, an
unexpected parallel that links these two women
artists who worked independently of each other.
Although contrasting styles may render each of
the four artists in the exhibit uniquely
different, the theme force of ‘Illumination’
links them in aesthetics of light. Viewers who
visit this exhibition are inadvertently endowed
with illuminating insight in the presence of
this rare collection of art works.
The exhibit that opened on May 3 has been
extended only until September 19 but there is
still time to ‘catch the light’ before the
exhibit ends.
For further information, please visit
www.ocma.org.
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