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For over thirty
years, New Mexico based artist Florence Pierce has been developing
richly nuanced, low relief resin and pigment paintings. In their
elements of monochrome, experimental mediums, and sense of seriality,
these post-minimal, reductive works place her both in the tradition
and company of Kasimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Ad Reinhardt,
Agnes Martin, Barnett Newman, Robert Ryman, and Robert Mangold.
However, unlike some of these artists, the consistent element in her
work has been what the artist calls ‘a meditative quality and
Zen-like “stilling of the mind” simplicity’—a state she achieves by
orienting her work with shapes such as squares, rectangles,
triangles, lozenge forms and polygons. Surprisingly rich in color
and complex in their material qualities, these resin and pigment
paintings reveal themselves best to the viewer in person and, in
this regard, Pierce shares much with innovative artists preoccupied
with the properties of light.
Pierce was born in Washington DC, in 1918 and, unbelievable as it
sounds, this was her first solo show in New York. At eighteen,
having become serious about art, and spiritualism in both art and in
New Mexico, where her grandparents lived, she convinced her parents
to allow her to travel alone to Taos to study for a summer with the
noted artist and follower of mysticism in art, Emil Bisstram, at his
Studio School. Two years later she returned to New Mexico and was
asked to join the Transcendental Painting Group (TPG), led by
Bisttram, and Raymond Jonson, where she met her husband, Horace
Towner Pierce, who was also a student. The goal of the TPG was to
“carry painting beyond the appearance of the physical world through
new concepts of space, color, light and design to imaginative realms
that are idealistic and spiritual.” Although Pierce did not
eventually accept all of the manifestos and organized group thinking
of the TPG, the core concepts of transcendental art became embedded
in her work. Before settling permanently in New Mexico in 1955,
where she raised her family, she lived for a brief time in New York
City, Washington DC, and Los Angeles.
The exhibition is an intimate overview of twelve abstract paintings
dating from 1983–2002; it consists of geometric shapes including
several 16” x16” squares and other larger shaped pieces such as a
72” cylindrical form, and a 46” x 41” triangle which are mainly
monochromes in shades of whites and aquamarine. Pierce pours layers
of resin over mirrored plexiglass encasing colors, as well as
occasionally adds milled fiberglass to dim the reflection and to
alter the colors or forms within the geometric forms. The paintings
are mounted so that they float off the wall, underscoring the rough,
uneven edges and delicately nuanced surfaces. By pressing parchment
into the setting surface, the artist is able to create modulations
that vary from tiny ripples to larger wave-like undulations. To her
credit, by rejecting a regularized pattern in these larger
undulating surfaces, she is able to nudge the cerebralness of the
geometric shapes into a domain that is more emotional and
experiential (temporal). Subsequently, this modulated impression is
covered with layers of translucent or transparent resin. Finally,
after the last pour, she both lays down and removes vellum from the
setting surface in order to get a matte surface, thus quieting the
reflectivity of the under layers and mirrored support.
The result of decades of experimentation, these thoughtful works
reveal a vitality of search, of mental and physical engagement, that
is not often found or (sustained) in work of this type. They are
poetic, compelling, and quiet works that invite the viewer to pare
away filters of cognitive analysis and to engage with the intuitive
mind in the act of seeing. “Untitled (White with Cross Stripes),”
1991, is a small cream square with a cross centered an inch in from
the edges. It appears that the artist placed a strip of white paper
horizontally in a surface that looks like wet snow and pulled it up,
leaving behind its impression, and then simply laid it down
vertically, allowing one to mentally trace and replay the action.
“Untitled #513 (Blue Green)” is also a 16 inch square piece, which,
like a dark Ad Reinhardt painting, beckons (as if in a whisper) for
the viewer step in for a closer look. Tiny surface ripples and a
slow greenish glow at the base conjures thoughts of the sea at night
when a small breeze awakens the placid surface. Like the other works
on exhibit, these two works cannot be fully experienced from just
one angle and changes dramatically as they are viewed from different
angles and in different lighting conditions. Through their extremely
quiet coloration and slow gesture, both of these small pieces
achieve the sensations of expansiveness, action and time. Despite
its relatively lengthy incubation and its links with work that was
more popular decades ago, Pierce’s work feels as fresh and new as
tomorrow.
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Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Contemporary American and European Art |
