Terri Rolland at Linda Durham - Santa Fe, New Mexico - Brief Article

For her solo first appearance in Santa Fe, Terri Rolland not absented numerous paintings and works upon paper from the last sum of two units years. Against washes of pale color, Rolland paints stacks of great geometric elements of various extents and widths. Thrusting in from the cutting sides of the canvas in asymmetrical configurations, these cigarlike forms are patterned with alternating curvilinear bands of black and white. Thick black contour lines around the shapes create an almost volumetric issue that accentuates their resemblance to fingers and limbs, as well as to primitive weapons. Titles of that kind as Resistance and Fighting Likeness confirm the underlying faculty of perception of conflict.

In Defiance, at 50 by dint of 54 inches one of the larger compositions in the exhibit two elongated fingerlike forms float above a stack of truncated red oblongs that emerge along the left side of the canvas. Bulletlike forms and wider oblong with sky-colored and black tips edge in from the opposite side of the painting. The distinct aggressiveness of these shapes is in contrast to background lyrical passages of violet, grays and sea greens

"Political Cartoons," a series of smaller gouaches installed in a line on one wall of the gallery, is more prosperous at conveying the artist's chosen themes of human confrontation and alienation from one side singular combinations of abstract and figurative simple bodys Many of these gouaches feature sectioned heads with exaggerated eyes and protruding circular ears. These works have a Gustonesque quality that reach forths to the patches of mauvepink in the background. Edg in black, the heads are juxtaposed with other shapes resembling stretched-out tongues or hands and fingers. The combination establishes a able-bodied sense of psychological tension. Here, the use of repeating forms, which at times hampers the paintings, is modifyed by humor. As a rise Rolland's engaging organic formalism draw nears through all the more.

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