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| Pink I'm Sorry, 2008-2011 |
Recently, DH and I visited Maine and, while making our way back to the Boston area, somewhat impulsively stopped in Rockland and visited the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. It's a great space and we enjoyed the exhibit of painting by Ann Craven, Birds We Know, on view from June 29 - October 13, 2019. A note on the captions - the year is part of the title of the work.
These birds move beyond Audubon-style realism, way beyond. While recognizable as to species, and accurate in size and proportion, the color palette and painting technique result in feathery bird avatars; creatures we might meet in a dream or memory.
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| Center for Maine Contemporary Art. |
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| Installation, Birds We Know. |
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| Portrait of a Robin (Looking Away, after Picabia) 2011 |
The exhibit lets us glimpse a bit of Ms. Craven's process by including some of Ms. Craven's sketches and some of her sources, the traditional guidebooks used by bird watchers and naturalists. Often the birds in identification photographs are shown with plants native to their range.
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| https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-Eastern-Central-America-Guides/dp/0547152469 |
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| Bird guidebooks and sketches. |
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| Research materials and sketches. |
Ms. Craven's painted birds are given stylized botanical backgrounds; oversize blurry blooms and berries activate the canvas and create a surreal landscape.
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| Yello Fello Yello, 2018 |
The cuteness of fluffy bird in the image above is somewhat blunted by the prominence of scaly talons and sharp claws, and the slightly sinister scrutiny as the bird returns the viewer's gaze.
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| Silhouette Birds (after Courbet) 2006 |
Most of the paintings feature the bird figures in a front of a seasonless, quasi-artificial floral entourage not located in any recognizable diurnal moment - it's always brightly light. The sole winterscape, above, features two shadowless crows vocalizing. Separated into individual paintings, below, another pair of silhouetted birds seems have a relationship which spans their separated canvasses.
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| L: Silhouette Fade on Red and Pink, 2006 R: Silhouette Fade on Red, 2006 |
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| I Wasn't Sorry (with Cherries) 2003 |
The birds above could be characters in an avian version of Harold Pinter's play Betrayal. There are more combinations and permutations of bird groupings. One wonders, who is the odd bird out?
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| L: Portrait of a Bird #2 R: Portrait of 2 Birds (after Picabia), Brussels, 2006 |
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| L: St. Louis Cardinal (for Helsinki) 2010 R: St. Louis Cardinals (for Helsinki) 2010 |
Ms. Craven paints in oils, using a wet on wet technique which results in blending of color on the canvas, rather than on a separate palette. This approach facilitates the blurring of the floral backdrops, which contrasts which the crisper images of the birds.
I apologize for not having an image of the entire painting from which the detail below is taken, but the image does give an idea of Ms. Craven's brushwork, which creates a feathery texture approaching furriness at the edges.
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| Detail, Blue Song, 2003 |
One painting especially appealing to me is the owl image below, with a constellation of two moon-like calla lilies and a red poppy floating in the back. This is not a composition I will ever see in "real life" but I'm so glad Ms. Craven created it. For another take on this exhibit and more images visit: https://hyperallergic.com/515629/extraordinary-paintings-of-ordinary-birds/
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| Barred Owl (Howl), 2009 |
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| Singing Finch, 2001 |
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| Puff Puff, 2004 |