Saturday, October 14, 2023

Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, solo show at Watchung Arts Center, 9/16/23 - 10/22/23

by Bruce Halpin


Mona Brody’s show “Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices" at the Watchung Arts Center presents an effulgent excursion into the Sublime. I mean this particularly in a specific formal sense as well as the more commonly understood connotation: beautiful to the point of ineffability.The beauty of the paintings is what strikes the viewer immediately and emphatically. The other sense of sublime requires some explanation. 



In her seminal text on American painting of the Nineteenth Century: “Nature and Culture", Barbara Novack identifies two distinct aspects of the sublime, what she refers to as The Grand Opera and the Still Small Voice applied variously to artists such as Fredric Edwin Church and Fitz H Lane; Church obviously representing the grand opera and Lane, the still small voice. These two aspects of the sublime play back and forth throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and now into the 21st. Examples of the two might include Pollack, Rothko, on the one hand, and say, Agnes Martin or Forrest Bess on the other. Of particular significance is Bill Jensen whose early work, much influenced by Ryder, served as a jumping off point to his current painterly explorations. Mona Brody’s work is very much of the grand opera scheme, although the influence of nature in her paintings temper that. Edmund Burke, the 18th century revivalist of the sublime emphasized “Astonishment" and the transformative potential of the experience as being central to the sublime. Ms Brody’s paintings express that sentiment to the extreme. Her use of unconventional materials (shellac and raw pigments) implies a sensibility searching for extreme expression, as if mere paint and canvas could not alone supply the super charged effects she is seeking. The application of those materials also suggests a kind of “take it to the limit" feeling of these paintings. As Burke also suggested, beauty is not the proper vehicle for extreme and mysterious experience, a sense of transcendence is needed for the sublime to operate. 



Viewers seeking a profound experience, touching on mystery and imagination, owe it to themselves to see this show. 


Mona Brody: Portals, Apparitions and Other Voices, curated by Paul Pinkman, at Watchung Arts Center, 18 Sterling Road, Watchung, NJ, runs through October 22, 2023.


Bruce Halpin is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Bruce's bio here and view his artwork here.

Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky at Watchung Arts Center, 9/16/23 - 10/22/23

by Winifred McNeill
10/13/23


This one-person exhibition by Anne Trauben is an immersive experience into a magical world that is not to be missed. Trauben is a multidisciplinary artist who uses her ceramic practice as a centering device for a range of ambitious artworks. This installation brings together a multitude of materials that pay homage to the night sky and the beauty of the evening song.  
 
Hand-built porcelain forms conceal electrical junctions and enfold lights which hang, wires and all, from a floating framework. Looking up, and with the help of a small flashlight and step stool, one is rewarded by the discovery of monochromatic assemblages affixed to the ceiling.


 

Within the darkened room, participants become slowly aware of being surrounded by a large array of these small, delicate compositions. These highly organized designs are arranged in loose intervals across all the walls of the exhibit. Flat planes of fired porcelain shapes are intertwined with a variety of materials including embroidery hoops, glassine, vellum, and cardboard to become monochromatic constellations of delicate beauty.



Bird songs intermixed with softly spoken words encourage the viewer to look around the space of the exhibition to discover their source.  Within the space of the installation, one becomes aware of the gentle mystery of night.  


Anne Trauben: Step Up on a Stool to Reach the Sky, curated by Paul Pinkman, at Watchung Arts Center, 18 Sterling Road, Watchung, NJ, runs through October 22, 2023.


Winifred McNeill is an artist living in Jersey City. Read Winifred's bio here and view her artwork here.