Louise Belcourt, “Hedgeland Painting 5,” 2009, oil on canvas over panel, 30.5 x 41″
Louise Belcourt, “Hedgeland Painting 9,” 2009, oil on canvas over panel, 30 x 41″
Louise Belcourt, “Hedgeland Painting 12,” 2009, oil on panel, 22 x 27″
Louise Belcourt, “Hedgeland Painting 14,” 2010, oil on canvas over panel, 49 x 59″
In the March issue of The Brooklyn Rail I reviewed Louise Belcourt’s show at Jeff Bailey. Here’s an excerpt. “For years Louise Belcourt has divided her time between Williamsburg and a small Canadian town on the south side of the St. Lawrence river where she spent summers as a child. More than 12 years ago, she built a studio on a high cliff overlooking the river; the clear Canadian light, majestic water views, and looming, manicured hedges that surround her family�s nearby property have figured prominently in her work ever since. In earlier paintings, sweeping vistas populated by distant hedge-like formations were informed by the isolation and broad vantage point of her surroundings. In the new exhibition at Jeff Bailey, her first solo in almost four years, the magisterial panoramas have given way to a series of fractured, hard-edge spatial illusions that bump up against the picture plane, simultaneously framing and blocking the view. Much good painting demonstrates this paradoxical capacity of the medium to both illuminate and obfuscate, and these canvases continue the tradition…” Read more.
“Louise Belcourt: Paintings,” Jeff Bailey, New York, NY. Through March 27.
Related article: Louise Belcourt @ Jeff Bailey, reviewed by David Brody in ArtCritcal.
Related images:
Hans Hoffman, “Goliath,” 1960. Image: www.hanshoffman.net
Hans Hofmann, “Silent Night,” 1964, oil on canvas, 78� x 84″
