Artists "Review" Artists: Jenn Figg on Bob Barbera

The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008.  Below is a "review" of Bob Barbera's work, wedges, written by Jenn Figg.  Bob provided the second jpeg, an image of Boat, as well as a brief response to Jenn's "review."

Bob currently resides in Cherry Hill, NJ, and Jenn lives in Richmond, VA.

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

wedges
acrylic and collage on canvas
24" x 28"
2008

The "Review"

A 24" x 36" collage on canvas, Wedges is a painterly visual composition rather than a linear narrative tableaux relying heavily on color, material juxtaposition, and paint application style to convey visual meaning.

Wedges engages the eye via the placement of form and color.  Moving from right to left, the composition employs a grouping of horizontal grey lines. Depending on a wash of a transparent white paint, the ground flows forward causing a caesura of horizontal movement.  The lines lead to a trio of electric color, a grouping of starkly chromatic geometric forms in combinations of blue, red, and orange.  The bright wedges hover at a visual distance above the washed grounding, as evidence of layers of paint and material join to form a recessive surface.  The painted surface is subtly revealed between wash strokes and drips.  These drips engage an inverted maneuver as they contrarily trickle upward.  Simultaneously shunning the laws of gravity, they provide a visual anchor for the larger forms.  Spatial recognition falters when the white wash shifts to grey; a bright stripe that separates the color bodies also forces a bisection of the work.  There is a sense that what is above should possibly push back, but the space is flattened behind the red striped geometry, and the possibility of real depth is thwarted.  While most of the objects are articulated through color, the circle adjacent to the blue form is outlined; this breaks with the rest of the work and has an opportunity to be a focal point, but fails due to its stylistic inconsistencies and lack of detail.

The level of abstraction within Wedges is evasive enough to allow this work to visually operate as a vibrant geometric color play. If pressed, a viewer might project a familiar scene of  hanging textiles – as in a washroom.  This reading has the further virtue of placing the circular form as a concretized object, such as a finial. But the study of shapes disallows any temporality, thus subverting narrative and conceptual storytelling.  Wedges are tools of activation, yet Wedges suggests stasis.

By Jenn Figg

 
Boat
acrylic on canvas
16" x 20"
2008

The Response

I want to thank you, Jenn Figg, for an insightful, detailed, review of my painting.  Everything you have observed comes close to issues running through my head while working on the piece, including the thwarting of spatial consistency and using inconsistent stylistic elements successfully or otherwise to avoid a pat completeness.  My intent is to leave an openness to the piece so it won't rest too easily.  It’s a slippery slope to walk along, I know.

By Bob Barbera

Previous "Reviews":
Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee
Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor
Aric Calfee on Paula McCullough
Matthew Ballou on Heather Levy
Giovanni Garcia-Fenech on TJ Norris
TJ Norris on Giovanni Garcia-Fenech
Susan Tolbert on Mary Klein
Heather Levy on Gail Vollrath
Sharon Butler on Matthew Ballou
Mark L. Power on Steven Alexander
Steven Alexander on Mark L. Power
Molly Norris on M. Trigos
Ken Weathersby on Joseph Barbaccia
Sondra Arkin on Susan Tolbert
John M. Adams on Sharon Butler
Michael Paul Oman-Reagan on Brent Hallard
Daniel Mafe on Pam Farrell