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Linda Caputo Undertakes An Engaging Dialogue Between Drawing And Painting.
By Margaret Regan
DESPITE ITS REPUTATION for inventing a new aesthetic that
has nothing to do with the "real" world, abstract art
very often draws its imagery from recognizable objects. In fact,
much abstract painting re-envisions the undulating lines of the
lands around us or the geometric hardscapes of our cities or the
soft yielding shapes of the human body. And it relies on the emotional
power of color.
That certainly is the case with Linda Caputo, a Tucson painter
who has filled Dinnerware Gallery with a collection of 18 fine
mixed-media paintings. On one level, these abstract works on paper
are straightforward explorations of color against color, experiments
in the shock of a shot of lime-green chalk against
flaming orange-red paint ("Simple Burn") or airy cerulean
blue and bright yellow bursting out of earthbound browns and purples
("Bruised").
They're also about the contrast between Caputo's carefully controlled
paint, and the wild abandon of the markings she's scratched into
her pigments. These scratches create lots of interesting surface
texture, acting as drawings that both float above the painting
and interact with it. Like "Simple Burn," where the
scratches are so plentiful they actually become part of the formal
composition, the finished works undertake an engaging dialogue
between drawing and painting. Then, too, the paintings play with
overlapping planes. One of the best pieces in the show is "Nooba--Place
of Turning," a lovely painting that explores the myriad shades
of gray. Also one of the larger works, at about 24-by-24 inches,
the layerings in this painting amount almost to an optical illusion:
a series of gray painted planes seem to be peeling back, like
curled paper, to reveal other colored layers underneath, including
a brilliant swathe of pink and red.
In fact, many of the works play with the idea of a passage from
one plane to another, which brings me back to my original point.
It's a short leap from the simple geometry of these planes to
the complex psychology of life passages. Obviously, Caputo's works
can be read formally, as experiments in color and composition,
but they readily suggest "real-life" interpretations.
The shadowy painted planes in these pieces nearly always suggest
a sense of place, from the claustrophobic cave-like curves of
"Bruised" to the city-shapes of "Nooba." There
are architectural elements ("Seduction" and "Adjusted
Encounter") and suggestions of plants and animals ("Blue
Skar" and "Camouflage").
Caputo's titles point us toward a psychological dimension,
and her colors emphasize the works' emotional component. For example,
the dark purples and browns of "Bruised" are in fact
the colors of bruises to the body, and the confining composition
suggests some kind of emotional entrapment. Caputo continues the
metaphor in this work's passage from darkness to the light, via
the oval of blue and yellow that bursts into the space like the
redeeming dawn. In "Nooba--Place of Turning," the vaguely
suggested gray skyscrapers again seem to be turning toward a brilliantly
pink--optimistic--new day.
Not all the pieces have the same one-two punch of physical and
emotional power. "Lacuna" reinterprets a map of the
world, with the green land masses inevitably separated by the
gaps (or lacunae) of the oceans. Caputo apparently intended this
to be a statement about cultural misunderstandings, but it comes
across as more illustrational, and less interesting, than the
other works in the show. Nevertheless, in the great bulk of her
attractive paintings, the artist shows herself adept at traveling
the passages between aesthetic and emotional concerns, and back
again.
Linda Caputo: New Work, Mixed Media on Paper continues
through Saturday, December 21, at Dinnerware Artists' Cooperative
Gallery, 135 E. Congress St. Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m.
Tuesday through Saturday, with extended hours until 7 p.m. every
Thursday for Art Walk, and from 7 to 10 p.m. on Downtown Saturday
Nights. For more information call 792-4503.
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