01/23/2016
Nora Phillips: From Cloisonnism to Ab-Ex and Beyond
Question: What do you get when you cross Gauguinesque color with quasi-late Abstract Expressionist sensibilities? If you answered, “Nora Phillips, because I can read the title of this article,” then you are correct. You are also kind of an as***le for ruining my intro, but correct nonetheless. Whether painting representationally or in abstract, Phillips' work has a tendency to seize one's eyes and hold them captive; baiting one to scan her work in chaotic directions that are just as fragmented as her picture plane. Typical of Ab-Ex? That's valid, but Phillips' fractures are just as present in her illustrative work as well. In the aptly named, “Triptico Otoño,” darkly outlined, amoebalike reds, oranges, and yellows create the Fall canopy which—while continuing in linear fashion—causes the eye to zig-zag across the three canvases as if they were connecting dots. The yellow, pink, and greens of the landscape proper, by contrast, present a more placid, smoothly flowing sensation, allowing the viewer to simultaneously experience the serenity, and vibrancy of Autumn.
This “stained-glass” approach to representation hearkens back to the earlier Post-Impressionist styles of Japonisme and Cloisonnism, but more Modernist influences manifest themselves at the forefront of her cityscapes and abstract pieces. In keeping with the theme of fragmentation, Cubism becomes a key force in pieces like, “Baires,” and “Toscana II.” Her abstract work, hardly a mere rehashing of a 20th Century movement, take on a quality which is at once marbled and collage-like. With their earthy palettes, paintings such as“Beginning” and “Perfil” create false-landscapes which can be read both conceptually, and literally. In the former, converging color-forms appear to be emanating from—or travelling back towards—a singular structure delineated by a pair of convex lines; petals sprouting from a flower, or nebulous matter inflating from the big-bang. The latter, a meandering central stream in a canyon becomes negative space for a literal portrait.
Phillips' mixed media work departs from representation even further, utilizing titles as a jumping point for an individual's mind to wander. Studies in texture, line, and form overlay color experimentation inviting a contemplative attitude toward themes celestial, organic, and philosophical. Too complex for Minimalism, too teleological for action painting, too primal for Pop, a piece like, “Blue Samurai II,” escapes easy, conventional labeling and still manages to leave the door ajar for an iconographic interpretation of the work; we are spotting shapes in the clouds. Indeed, an overall sampling of Phillip's apparent influences compared to her body of work is a clear indication of how an artist can arrive at a different conclusion from familiar premises.
-- Hoop & Stick (Originally Printed in Au Courant No. 19 (2014)
http://www.noraphillipsart.com
"Triptico Otono"
http://www.noraphillipsart.com/web/Painting_Gallery/Pages/Landscapes.html #0
"Perfil"
http://www.noraphillipsart.com/web/Painting_Gallery/Pages/Abstract_Paintings.html #6
Au Courant is a local art magazine representing North Carolina, with an empasis on the Raleigh area. Everyone was on board pretty quickly.
