Jeanette Fintz

The Cross Contemporary Art Gallery’s current presentation features the work of four artists that all incorporate unique color usage. The Paintings of Jeanette Fintz also address the unfolding of 3-D geometric forms depicted on a 2-D plane.

Jeanette Fintz, “Matrix, The Cold Pink”, 2015, Acrylic on canvas
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

In Fintz’s large scale canvas “Matrix, The Cold Pink”, a construction of cubes is unfolding in front of a background of squares and pentagons.

Jeanette Fintz, “Tumble 3”, 2014, Acrylic on wood panel
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

“Tumble 3”, a painting on wood panel, depicts accordion-folded strips. It is the artist’s selection of colors that gives the appearance of dimensionality. There is no use of shading. Each rhombus is painted in a solid color.

The geometry in Fintz’s paintings pops and hums off the plane. Combining carefully rendered hard-edge lines and shapes with powerful and unexpected colors this work produces a dynamic presence in the gallery.

Susan Happersett

The Kleinart/James Center for the Arts at the Byrdcliffe Guild in Woodstock, NY is currently presenting the exhibition “The Ritual of Construction. Curated by Jeanette Fintz, the show features work that has a foundation in geometry. Basic mathematical structures like circles, squares, and other polygons have been elevated through ritualistic repetition.

Benigna Chilla, “Crescents” 2013, Vegetable pigments and acrylic on canvas
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

This large unstretched canvas by Benigna Chilla features a grid of circles segmented into squares and rectangles through the use of subtle coloration. An overlying pattern of six crescents incorporate a reflective symmetry. Chilla’s banner-like paintings have the spirit of devotional and meditative mandalas.

Stephen Westfall, “Live for Tomorrow”, 2010, oil and alkyd on canvas
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

Stephen Westfall’s painting “Live for Tomorrow” is a colorful feast of reflective symmetry. The hard edge bands cutting diagonally across the four rectangles form a central square. Part of the interior section of the painting features order-4 rotational symmetry, but Westfall’s use of rectangles does not allow this to carry through the entire structure of the work, creating a kinetic pulse of color. I should probably mention that Stephen Westfall was my professor of Art Theory when I was in graduate school and I have always admired his work.

Laura Battle “Prism” 2016, Graphite on gray Arches paper
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

Laura Battle “Prism” 2016, Graphite on gray Arches paper (Detail)
Picture courtesy of the artist and the gallery

Through the use of an astonishingly detailed repetitive accumulation of straight lines and concentric circles, Laura Battle creates “Prism”. From a distance, the subject of the drawing appears to be the central parallelogram that strategically touches all four edges of the drawing. Upon closer inspection it becomes apparent the real theme is the relationship between the two types of lines straight and curvi-linear lines. The intense process necessary for creating such an intense drawing definitely highlights the ritual aspects of the entire exhibition,

I am always happy to see an art show with a geometric intention. This diverse presentation goes a step further and asks us to go beyond the mathematical logic and think about geometry as a spiritual experience.

Susan Happersett