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David Brewster at Gross-McCleaf
The rough and the smooth
ANDREW MANGRAVITE
David Brewster's new exhibition once again eschews the urban imagery of his earliest work to continue his exploration of rustic imagery and pure landscape art. Brewster's brushwork is as vigorous as always and begins to carry him more and more into the realm of abstract art. This trend is especially noticeable in his pure landscapes, such as "Rustic Run with Creamy Hill" and "Black Currents." About half the work included in this show tends toward abstraction.
Sharing wall space with Brewster on the day I visited the gallery were three large landscapes by Mary Putnam. I found this juxtaposition most interesting: In it we find nothing less than two different approaches to apprehending the world around us. A painting like Putnam's "Spring Thaw at Snow Farm" is a world unto itself. This vast panorama of minutely detailed buildings and landscape is as breathtaking in its way as Brewster's bravura displays. One sees form, the other sees feeling. Putnam delineates as if to fix Snow Farm in our minds for all time, though of course the image she presents may be pure fantasy. Brewster dissolves the real world and recreates it as color and shape in an increasingly non-representational way. I suspect that Brewster puts a lot of what he's feeling into his art. It certainly strikes me that way and always has.
Brewster seizes upon elements in a landscape— an abandoned tractor, a ruined farmhouse, cows in a stable— and explodes them. Putnam takes an entire landscape, as far as the eye can see, and imposes a rigid order upon it. Both approaches, though contradictory, work equally well and are equally satisfying to the eye, which is what art is all about.
Brewster’s "Hurricane Snow Fall," "Standing Roofless in the Glen," and "Porcupine City" are nice additions to his body of work, although all seem darker to me than his earlier works. But this may be a misapprehension of my part. "Western Run and Creamy Hill" is a bright enough work. In the end, I suppose what's most significant in "Roiling Light" is his continuing tendency toward abstraction. Brewster's earliest work maintained a neatly held tension between the representational and the abstract. Now it appears that the balance may at last be tipping.
ANDREW MANGRAVITE
David Brewster's new exhibition once again eschews the urban imagery of his earliest work to continue his exploration of rustic imagery and pure landscape art. Brewster's brushwork is as vigorous as always and begins to carry him more and more into the realm of abstract art. This trend is especially noticeable in his pure landscapes, such as "Rustic Run with Creamy Hill" and "Black Currents." About half the work included in this show tends toward abstraction.
Sharing wall space with Brewster on the day I visited the gallery were three large landscapes by Mary Putnam. I found this juxtaposition most interesting: In it we find nothing less than two different approaches to apprehending the world around us. A painting like Putnam's "Spring Thaw at Snow Farm" is a world unto itself. This vast panorama of minutely detailed buildings and landscape is as breathtaking in its way as Brewster's bravura displays. One sees form, the other sees feeling. Putnam delineates as if to fix Snow Farm in our minds for all time, though of course the image she presents may be pure fantasy. Brewster dissolves the real world and recreates it as color and shape in an increasingly non-representational way. I suspect that Brewster puts a lot of what he's feeling into his art. It certainly strikes me that way and always has.
Brewster seizes upon elements in a landscape— an abandoned tractor, a ruined farmhouse, cows in a stable— and explodes them. Putnam takes an entire landscape, as far as the eye can see, and imposes a rigid order upon it. Both approaches, though contradictory, work equally well and are equally satisfying to the eye, which is what art is all about.
Brewster’s "Hurricane Snow Fall," "Standing Roofless in the Glen," and "Porcupine City" are nice additions to his body of work, although all seem darker to me than his earlier works. But this may be a misapprehension of my part. "Western Run and Creamy Hill" is a bright enough work. In the end, I suppose what's most significant in "Roiling Light" is his continuing tendency toward abstraction. Brewster's earliest work maintained a neatly held tension between the representational and the abstract. Now it appears that the balance may at last be tipping.
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