Artists "Review" Artists: Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor

The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008.  Below is a "review" of Leigh Waldron-Taylor's work, Untitled, written by Lee Gainer.  Leigh provided the second jpeg, an image of Interior, as well as a brief response to Lee's "review."

Leigh currently resides in Provincetown, MA, and Lee lives in Fairfax, VA.

If you would like to participate in this project, please email me at jtkirkland [at] gmail [dot] com.

Untitled
Acrylic on wooden panel
10" x 10"
2008

The "Review"

This acrylic painting on board, "Untitled", reminds me of the flares and smoke that appear when someone rubs a genie's lamp.  "I Dream of Jeannie" was originally filmed in black and white but this piece is created using all out Technicolor.  The ghostly, white swirls push forward, giving the piece depth and some movement.  The bits of dark blue and red in the background add to this effect, providing a full bodied richness of color in the top half or so of this work.  If the techniques used in the top half of the painting were used in a large piece, I would feel that I could literally step into the painting.  It could swallow you whole in its' layers of color.  However the lack of the darker colors in the bottom half allow the white and muddy yellow ochre swirls to overwhelm and flatten.  The top half of the piece is more successful and visually interesting then the bottom half.  I would encourage the artist to continue pushing the "ribbons" of color technique to greater visual depth and to experiment with atypical colors. 

 

This artist may enjoy viewing the work of Karin Davie who employs swirls of grand color on a large scale.  On a technical note, the image used for this review was skewed, allowing a bit of the wall behind to be seen.  This can easily be fixed using any of several graphics programs.  I'd like to see the painting from edge to edge, rather then cropped due to photo editing, just as it would be viewed in a gallery.

By Lee Gainer

Orange
Arylic on wooden panel
6" x 6"
2008

The Response

Thank you, Lee, for your comments.   I wanted feedback on it because it is one that came out of nowhere after a series of two-color small squiggle paintings and I really liked it.  I agree about the bottom, and that bigger and color are worth exploring.

 

By Leigh Waldron-Taylor

Previous "Reviews":

Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee

Comments

[LG]

I just checked out Leigh's website and I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the work there, particularly the "teeth" paintings, the dark prints ("Soldier", "Rhino") and "Cape House" (I can imagine the lady thinking, "I hope I didn't leave the iron on."). I really enjoyed viewing your other pieces and hope to see them in person on exhibit one day.