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Diane Fine is the featured artist at forARTSake in the exhibit entitled
Seen and Unseen: Works on
Paper scheduled to open
on Saturday, September 15 and run through Saturday, October 13. Fine is
currently Professor of Art at SUNY Plattsburgh where she teaches
printmaking and book arts. She is inspired by printmaking techniques
that enable her to create many and varied kinds of surfaces and marks.
In her exhibit, Diane Fine seems to exemplify the advice of Odilon
Redon, a famous artist in the style of symbolism, who said art should
make the invisible, visible.
Historically, drawings and prints rarely
have the same cachet as paintings. One notable exception in history is
the Japanese print that served as a catalyst for Modern Art. Diane’s
exhibit gives evidence of their status in today’s art world. Her
drawings and prints are varied in size and are placed in thematic
groupings on each wall of the gallery.
On the east wall, there are intaglio
and letterpress prints from Diane’s recent sabbatical in Japan. Here the
viewer will find a set of images in a series of seven prints entitled
Japan 1 through Japan 7. The scenes depicted
combine nature with objects. Oriental poems and images reinforce the
sentiments Diane seeks to communicate.
One of
the images contains the end of a wood beam painted white. The
words make an association not only with the moon but also with going
inside and knowing oneself. The flat rectangular shape placed against a
dark background is easily seen, but the mysterious world associated with
it remains hidden or unseen. Diane’s romantic sensibility evident in
this print is in keeping with her emphasis on the intuitive and
non-rational as a way of knowing. She reveals a metaphoric minde
especially in touch with the spiritual, aesthetic, and emotional
dimensions of life.
Another
image in this series is a floating world scene that evokes a
cosmic consciousness. It shows a world of moss, trees, and mist and
enables the viewer to transcend the seen and solid world. Diane also
uses the technical process to achieve sensuous and formal effects. Her
floating world retains subtle gradations, textural surfaces, and
a rhythmic composition. One print in this series represents an austere
interior that is typical of Japanese architecture. The Mondrian-like
geometric shapes of the floor and window are contrasted with a sumptuous
floral wall pattern. The poetic words in the print connect everything in
the image to the idea of maternal love and sharing. A significant symbol
is the window as it suggests an unseen world that is very much a part of
the human spirit.
The print of a Zen garden shows rocks
arranged in an informal and natural pattern. This image hints at
stillness and oneness with Nature that has the effect of creating a
meditative and peaceful state. In this relaxed state, it is almost
hard to pull away and move on to the colorful images on the next wall.
Diane says that her images are derived from the basic human need to find
and make things beautiful for the sake of emotional comfort and
spiritual stimulation.
On the South wall are a series of small
pictures that show Diane’s imagination in a non-objective idiom in which
there is no concrete subject matter. According to Diane, she has deep
emotional connections to painted rocks as powerful images from
childhood. These petroglyphic designs are striking in originality and
seem both primitive and sophisticated. The one entitled
Virginia: No. 18
uses a dot pattern that is reminiscent of Australian aboriginal art. It
reveals what artists refer to as intelligent play.
The west wall features some larger mixed
media drawings. They are pictographic and reminiscent of Adolph
Gottlieb’s style of abstract expressionism in which he takes only an
aspect of something and creates a pattern from it. The image is always
personal, emotional, decorative and often symbolic in its effect.
Diane’s image entitled Entry has all the merits of
aesthetic unity plus an existential edge. The bold central triangular
shape is both pleasing and ideographic or glyphic. It may be a primal
sign pointing to things hidden and complex. These simple drawings range
in expression from the whimsical to the cryptic. The ambiguity is
inviting and even entrancing. If the viewer lets the image work as it
should on the subconscious level as well as the conscious, the print can
be both a physical (seen) and metaphysical (unseen) experience.
There are bird prints on both the north
wall and at the top of the stairs going into the gallery. The intaglio (a
printmaking technique with an incised image)
entitled Spinning presents floating shapes on the right
and a bird on the left. Dotted and dash-like lines swirl around
suggesting movement. There are also flat, colorful circles and ovals on
the right that form a composition by themselves, but one mysteriously
floats over into the foreground with the bird. The whole image is
enigmatic. It is an experience in itself to make possible connections,
and the viewer can have a lot of fun doing so.
A more straightforward lithograph (a
print made from a drawing on a flat stone) entitled Essential
Question located at the top of the stairs shows a large bird on
a floral background of pink flowers. The words on the print ask the
question, “What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to
you?” The effect is to make a powerful and emotional appeal to
humanity to take care of the environment. Diane says herself that her
images ask fundamental questions in spite of the fact that there may be
no answers.
In the foyer are several large relief
prints. They are well-executed floral patterns. The images offer black
and white designs that have a contrast of small red stylized shapes.
Diane has superimposed a red motif in various places in each image to
enhance the design. She demonstrates how color can create a pleasing
counterpoint and add a touch of mystery to an image.
Diane Fine’s presentation reveals her
ability to take both inward and outward journeys as she explores the
boundaries of the known and unknown. Fine’s exhibit is available in the
Upstairs Gallery at forARTSake during business hours on Tuesday to
Friday from 10 to 5 and Saturday from 10 to 4. The public is invited to
the Artist Reception at forARTSake on Saturday, September 15 from 6 to 8
PM.
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