Empty Spaces Exist No ore
At Montage Gallery through Oct. 25
By Blake de Pastino
Empty Spaces Exist No More
At Montage Gallery through Oct. 25
Maxine Taylor came hard by the realization that the real world was no longer for her. After nearly three
decades of painting landscapes and street scenes, Taylor began tinkering with abstraction only a few years ago, working toward
a less literal and more problematic way of framing the world as she saw it. Just in the past year, though, she finally uncurled
her fingers from around the rule book of realism and let her hands roam. And as her tight little show now on display at Montage
Gallery proves, few things are more strangely comforting than watching an artist revel in newfound freedom.
The tradition that Taylor cribs from in Empty Spaces seems to
date back to Jackson Pollock and Franz Klein, but labeling her a stone-cold Abstract Expressionist falls shy of the mark.
This most recent work--all 22 pieces were produced in the past year--are both warmer and more economical than old-school Ab
Ex. The show's title aside, Taylor doesn't seem to suffer from the same horror vacui that drove early expressionists to saturate
every inch of their canvases. Instead, she displays a tendency toward fewer, thicker strokes; a palette that could be described
in terms of tints rather than colors; and a willingness to let her compositions breathe through just a thin drapery of acrylic,
watercolor, ink, and pastel. As curator Mitch Angel puts it, "she uses only enough blankets to keep you warm."
" I Haven't Put My Finger on It," for instance, marches out
just a few two-inch-wide bands of earthy color, with tiny, draftsmanlike boxes of ink lingering nearby; but everything eventually
retreats under a coat of acrylic, a pale dun so faint that it nearly matches the paper underneath, keeping the scene enticingly
muted. The aptly titled "A New Point of View," meanwhile, is a Zen-tinged composition of watercolor ribbons in pea green and
peach, with a small splash of coffee brown ripping through the center, and four inky forms, painted with a calligrapher's
brush, looking like equal parts stick figures and Japanese kanji.
It's this mixture of airiness and geometry that suggests Taylor
is developing her own unique slang, and in "Roots of Change" (pictured) you can see that it all stems back to her days in
landscape painting. Two thick black stripes form a kind of horizon near the top here, a faint triangle hanging below, like
a lake mirroring a mountain scene. From the center of the frame run five thin lines, each ending with a rough red rectangle.
They could be roads leading to buildings, or stems ending in petals. Either way, you get the sense that something's on the
go, like there is most places in this show, and that in time everything takes its own course.
