Spring in all its glory is fully evident throughout our patch of the globe. Flowering trees combine with perennials to color the landscapes as only they can do.
At the Marion Art Center, a new exhibit has just opened that adds to the delights of spring with color galore. Titled Profusion of Color: Abstracts, the show, features the works of artists Alyn Carlson, Pat Coomey Thornton and Pat Warwick.
Upon entering the MAC, one is immediately enveloped is rich colors and shapes. Each wall of the two galleries holds thrilling, textured work with themes created by artists who “see” far beyond the reality into the imagined, into the what can be. Their ability to create and drive to do so is there for all to enjoy.
Carlson has been creating works of art since she was a child, “but about 15 years ago, I started to take things seriously,” she said. Carlson admittedly felt timid about pursuing visual art. Yet there is nothing timid in her finished pieces.
Carlson’s visual art creations run the gamut of methods from watercolors to oil to gouache and graphite as well as a wide variety of expression. Interior designs, theater both as an actor and director, author and paper art, are just a few more of Carlson’s creative inclinations. Of her art and its many forms, Carlson says, “You pick where you want to go with me.”
The paintings on exhibit at the MAC stem from her early influences living on a farm. When you step back from several of her displayed paintings, you can feel and see the open plains and the vast prairies blanketed in waving grasses. And if you pause long enough, you may even feel the wind as it rolls across the vegetation and hear the rushing sound as if water were flowing. Carlson would surely agree.
Pat Warwick was a tile artist; those small, intense, little ceramic pieces that somehow capture everything that can be found on large canvases were Warwick’s signature works. She made tiles for some 36 years. But Warwick felt it was time to branch out and give her creative energies room to move through the abstract art form.
Five years ago, she began painting. She said of her process, “In the spirit of adventure, I make spontaneous marks with lots of color and texture to build layers, always on the lookout for a line or shape that emerges to evoke a memory. Often, I feel like an archaeologist creating order out of chaos. Though it is a personal journey for me, my hope is that a strong composition and nuanced surface will engage the viewer on a more universal level.”
Warwick’s process, of letting the shapes and colors she puts forth inform the major theme of the work, is the abstraction between the real and the imagined. It is where her many years of creating tiles comes out to play in complete abandonment; they are creations meant to open the mind’s eye to what can be, and they are simply glorious.
Pat Coomey Thornton says she has been creating art since she was 16. “I love everything about painting, the colors, the smells, everything!” She said that while raising her children, her art life had to take a backseat but that now, “I feel karma in the studio, it nourishes my soul.”
In writing of her process and experience as an artist, Coomey Thornton said, “I try to capture a sense of fleeting time, a glimpse of parts that suggest the whole, and the energy of a continuum. I hope to create a work where color, texture and mark offer the observer an absorbing entrance to their own experiences and thoughts.”
Coomey Thornton also said of her work, “I seize upon nuances from my surroundings and life as points of departure. I simplify shapes to suggest their recognizable relatives and hope to generate more than one interpretation.”
As an educator, Coomey Thornton has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design and the School of the Worcester Art Museum. She retired 12 years ago, giving her time to more fully explore her creative works. Her canvases feature themes from nature or spiritual experiences, experiential moods through time with shapes and colors that exude grace.
Abstract art takes from reality but does not attempt to accurately depict forms. Abstractions in art instead employs shapes, colors or forms with gestural movement to reach out from imagination to touch the viewer’s heart. Abstract art may be considered an acquired taste. However, once the appetite has been whetted, it is impossible to set it aside. Visit the MAC and taste something new and very delicious.
Profusion of Color: Abstractions is on view now through June 25. Visit marionartcenter.org for complete details.
Marion Art Center
By Marilou Newell