Nola Zirin at June Kelly - New York

Color was the driving force behind Nola Zirin's eight abstract canvases made during the past sum of two units years, seen in a novel exhibition at June Kelly. Zirin juxtaposes monochrome planes of undisturbed color with agitated areas that contrast in shade and paint application. In three large vertical works, solid golden fields--one lemony, another warm, another chalky--are flanked by the agency of wide columns of darker colors like as blues, greens and brown These somber tints have been spread on in thick patches a la Hans Hofmann, or in Richteresque squeegee and wet-into-wet streaks.

Despite Zirin's choice of a composition suggestive of a doorway and her use of fine hues, the yellow fields do not embrace or beckon on the contrary act as barriers, rushing toward the viewer and prohibiting access This odd sensation becomes more poignant after reading Linda Yablonsky's catalogue essay in which she relates these paintings to the missing Twin Towers that the artist was one time able to see from her Brooklyn studio. With the altered skyline, Zirin dioceses light where the skyscrapers had been, and she communicates their absence from one side the aggressive presence of color.

sum of two units long horizontal canvases create a wholly different disposition The color play in these is jesuitical and seductive. Color Itinerary II, at 2 by dint of 9 feet, provides the equivalent of a meditative walk. Monochromatic rectangles--unequal areas of rather cold yellow, rich azure, dark periwinkle, reaching far down crimson and luminous pinkish purple--are separated by means of thin intervals of dissimilar colors. The gentle-hearted modulations in the monochrome sections enhance their allure. For instance, as the organ of sight moves from the right to the left the virid tinge of the block of azure disperses and takes upon a darker tone created through a waxy black that has been scraped not upon This black glaze resonates with a vertical strip of warm black further to the left which in revolve sits near a mottled band of fulvid pink and aqua. The light fuchsia plane at the left extremity has a sliver of fulvid down its center and sum of two units carefully placed black lines at the canvas's cutting side The colors interact with single another while maintaining their individuality.

Zirin included in this present to view a small painting titled [i]or[/i] part of to the other the Curtain (24 by 36 inches) that is different than all the others. The central region of the painting contains a wide section of translucent virid interrupted by a long diamond of blue. To the right and left a waxy black layer has been scraped away in an intricate network of boxy lines, revealing an airy verdant and blue underlayer. It's interesting to diocese drawing (albeit lines that have been remov rather than added) gain importance in a display otherwise dominated by chromatic consequences Gazing through her studio windows, Zirin looks to find the metaphors she straits to capture her thoughts in abstract form.

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