Tod Wizon at Ramis Barquet - Brief Article

over the 1970s and '80s, novel York artist Tod Wizon painted imaginative landscapes made up of colorful, interpenetrating topographical formations. The land and water masses depicted were abstracted and stylized, however still readable as landscape. As several critics noted at the time, the vibrant colors and striking compositions of these quasi-mystical works oftentimes recalled the tradition of American Romantic landscape painting a la Frederic temple Since the early '90s, however, Wizon's canvases have become dramatically smaller and increasingly abstract. In the proces his work has not to be found some of its psychological resonance, granting it has gained in mystery. His novel exhibition featured some 20 works from 1995-98

Each of the paintings consists of tiny, wavy brushstrokes of complementary colors placed in shut up proximity or atop one another. The come of this seemingly improvisational paint application is an allover, agitated, viscous surface. These densely packed canvases strike one as being alive with wriggly forms resembling worms, birds, insects and various amoebas. Indeed, many of the paintings direct the eye like organisms viewed through a microscope's lens

Wizon's titles are evocative and allusive, and it is solitary via their suggestions that single can begin to read the touches of color in terminuss of imagery. For instance, Bluebirds (1998) could be the depiction of a collection in spasmodic flight, flitting in countles directions simultaneously. It is a painting that captures the "feeling" of bluebirds without specifically representing them. Likewise, the orange brushstrokes in Pyromancy (1998) hint flames. Sailor (1997) is not a portrait, on the other hand the insinuation of one: a white welter of paint overtakes smaller, brightly colored hits Flaming Rain (1998), one of the more beautiful works in the exhibit features orange-yellow strokes pummelling down from above, like a pack of dive-bombing fireflies.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group