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Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
July 2008
Return to Homepage www.shortnorth.com
Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
July 2008
www.lizjamesartscene.blogspot.com
LIZ JAMES ART COLUMNS
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Visit Art Columns 1999-2003Mac Worthington Galerie
Points of light illuminate artist's canvas
Jen Pierce-Eyen Jen Pierce-Eyen’s abstract pointillism limited edition giclées (pronounced zhee-klay) on canvas will continue to smoulder in a special rack at Mac Worthington Galerie all summer.
“Jen is getting ready to part with another original,” Tony Boring, gallery director, said as I wandered through Mac Worthington’s jam-packed gallery. There was one original Pierce-Eyen on the wall.
Midnight on Maui is 30 x 40 inches, the average size of a Pierce-Eyen work. The painting is definitely an abstract. It’s rich with deep, deep blues, spatters of blue-blacks, dark wines and curvy shapes, and talismanic dots in spills and clusters that are hard to define or name. The background is really a foreground, after all, the artist is looking up at the midnight sky, or maybe looking down at a bay where stars are reflected. As in other Pierce-Eyen’s works, the tiny dots have conceived dots. Small continents of red algae appear to float on the painting’s surface. There’s a suggestion of lavender.
As in other of her abstractions, Pierce-Eyen’s color blends and configurations are intricate, powerful, yet unobtrusive. One viewer thought she saw a dragon shape – or a constellation. Maui is an intriguing canvas that draws you in, exudes an air of mystery, of awe, and the Jungian and Einsteinian dark.
The artist uses acrylic and starts with a small brush. The canvas “tells” her what to do. Sometimes her dots contain dots, and there may be “well over a hundred thousand dots” in one painting. If you can’t really spend midnight on Maui, this painting lets you pretend.
Yes, Pierce-Eyen’s paintings are meditative. You can interpret them and receive from them. They tend toward dark backgrounds, which allow the viewer to name shapes floating on the surface. Santa Fe, 30 x 40 inches, is the only “brown” painting in the series, a sun-baked brown. Pale yellow dots and blue dots dance in it. One person thought she saw “onyx stones or beads.” No wonder – in fact, early on in her art career, Pierce-Eyen learned to work with beads. It’s likely that craft taught her patience and precision. The dots described here are myriad, and each one is smaller than the tip of your little finger.
Most commonly Pierce-Eyen’s backgrounds have been composed of merging like-colors, and constellations of dots float upon them. Stream of Consciousness, 24 x 36 inches, presents a field of not-so-midnight blue and offers a lilac-and-purple glow. The tiny dots, the pointilles, form shapes that may make you think of patterns in leaves, seeds, flowers. A stream of coral dances through the center, and we note aquamarine tributaries and small areas of dim purple, cranberry red and peach. This is one of the most complex of the abstract pointillist paintings. Jen knows that everything, including us, consists of dots, cells, molecules.
Stream of Consciousness Sex on a Cellular Level says it all, but once again, the specific interpretation is up to you. Here red swirls dance against cosmic mystery, the dark.
“It’s the starting of creativity, life itself, cells, brain cells, the moment of conception,” Pierce-Eyen suggested in so many words. Here we see meandering configurations of small white dots and small black dots with centers. A vein-like, serpentine river of dots twists upward through the center and ends in a peculiar uneven shape. “Some dots are waiting to produce other dots, cells, maybe it’s the moment of procreation,” another observer said.
The pointillists were, simply put, Impressionists who decided to convey their plein air landscapes through dots or points of light. Pierce-Eyen’s abstract pointillist paintings are actually very now and very minimal as to color and composition. They are indeed abstractions derived from the glories and intricacies of the natural world. A superficial glance won’t do. Each canvas evokes an emotional response and leads to shape-naming: galaxies, pond scum, brain cells, sand droppings, and yes, speckled leaves.
The artist loves science. Indeed, she reads books on quantum mechanics and the new physics. She rejoices in cells, in the similarity of all living things.
She and her husband Mark, a successful consultant, married when both of them were 18. “We were childhood sweethearts,” she says, “our birthdays are only four days apart, and it’s lasted! We have a 27-year-old son, Gregory, who lives in Clintonville.
“We followed Mark’s job, and we lived in European cities for years. Now we have our own place and two big horses, Friesians, from the ancient area of Holland. They’re big. They’re 7-years old and they weigh well over 2000 lbs. They are the descendants of the horses who carried knights in armor, you know, so they had to be big, strong, smart and courageous horses, and Mark and I love to ride them.
“I designed our house, and I re-designed the rundown horse barn on our property. Now the horse barn includes an art studio and a kitchen and a place for the horses and our one small doggy. I love to spend time there, painting, painting, painting; and in the daytime, we can look out and watch the horses.”
Yes, Eyen admits, she once had a penchant for lying on a blanket and staring up at the sky. She has always been a spiritual, earth-loving person, but she is also a savvy artist who has rarely parted with her originals, usually offering limited-edition giclées of her paintings. And that’s okay. Her work is quite good, and easily lends itself to purposes of decor and meditation.
Jen Pierce-Eyen is a graduate of Muskingum College and has been painting and drawing all her life, but only started painting abstracts in the pointillism style 10 years ago. She is also a published poet, and the author of two children’s books. Her art has been showcased in many collections and exhibitions, most recently at the Muse Gallery in Philadelphia and the Marysville Public Library. She has been an instructor at the Thurber House Community Art Outreach Program and a featured exhibitor at the Ohio State Fair. In late 2007 she became one of the many first-rate artists who make up Mac Worthington Galerie.
For Mac Worthington Galerie, one article is not enough. The walls are jam packed, but the quality is definitely there.Mac Worthington Galeri, 749 N. High St., is open Tuesday through Thursday 2 - 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 - 7, and Sunday noon to 5 p.m. Call 614-294-7790. Visit Jen’s Web site at http://jenpierceeyen.com
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