Exhibition: Lynn Taber Pastels

Dates: October 22nd - November 17th, 2004

Opening Reception: October 29th, 5:30 -7:30

Location: Temple Gallery, 330 South Scott Avenue, in the Temple of Music and Art. The Temple Gallery is managed by Etherton Gallery

Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday, 10-6 p.m. and prior to performances

Contact: Jerre Johnston 624-7370

Contents: Lynn Taber paints with pastel. Her subject matter is the Arizona sky. These are the skies that we know and yet can barely comprehend, because they are evanescent, fleeting, and momentarily wish-fulfilling like a shooting star. Conjured by the sensory phenomena of vision that lives within us Taberâs pastel landscapes exude the grace, drama, and mystery of form and color as it is confronted by light. As Taber states, ãIâm constantly enamored with the pageantry that is the Arizona sky. The light is so remarkable that sometimes it seems as if the sky and landscape are instead part of movie set with artificial lights and dramatic swirls of sky.ä

Particularly drawn to the twilight hours when the light is intensified before it fades into night, Taber often organizes her compositions so that the landscapes are three-fourths sky, with the remaining space given to distant mountain ranges and nearby canyons. Like the 19th century landscape painter James D. Innes, whose powerful sense of design and feeling for strong color creates an ambiance moving from shadow to light, Taber achieves luminosity by picking two colors that are high in value and pure in color. Leaving a space between the high-key colors and blending into white creates subtle transitions.

As Taber negotiates the abstract/representational divide of land and sky the materiality of her rich surfaces recall the magical effects of light realized in the works of 19th century painters John Constable, William Turner, and Claude Monet. Like Monet, Taber has long practiced the principle of fidelity to visual sensation painting directly from her vision of the drama of the sky. Employing the four-color techniques of luminosity, chromatic light, luster and iridescence, her pastel paintings recollect the light that defines forms against the surrounding darkness. These interim moments of darkness -slashed, split, and fused by the magical effects of light -create the seductive mood and inner force of Lynn Taberâs luminous and resounding landscapes.