Colin Brant’s communion with the inconstant

Contributed by Natasha Sweeten / You might consider the title of Colin Brant’s quietly inspiring exhibition “Mountains Like Rivers,” currently on view at Platform Project Space, an invitation to a world flipped on its end: what’s inherently solid becomes liquid, what’s up is now down. You would not be entirely wrong. Indeed, in Lake Louise/Poppies, the eponymous body of water mirrors the snowy, majestic range that anchors the painting. Red and yellow poppies in the foreground form a joyous tassel punctuating the band of blue, their stems waving like the arms of children eager to be called on.

At a deeper level, the show’s title suggests that the way we see this vast world around us is not a constant; everything everywhere is flush with change. This is not, of course, a new idea. In the sixth century BCE, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus famously observed that “no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Here Brant asks us to look again, to consider this idea from a viewpoint more immediate and less theoretical. His alluring palette, reminiscent of 1940s tinted postcards, elicits a nostalgia for both a time and place that seem familiar, but where I have never been.

The four larger oils – 60 x 50 inches or 60 x 65 inches – encourage us to face the solemnity of Mother Nature and at the same time feel almost casually encountered. In between dabs of paint, the canvases breathe, hinting at a speed or facility in execution and imparting a lightness of touch. In Borca di Cadore, Kodachrome pinks and purples soften a distant rock formation’s boldness, receding into a scenic drapery beyond a thrust of trees jostling for prominence along the painting’s left side. In Lake Louise with Lodge, a bubble of turquoise nestles within a jittery landscape of brushstrokes, as steadfast as the mountains that overlook it. The two-toned lake resists settling quietly into implied space as it reflects the land rising at its edge.

All feels at peace in these paintings – there are no humans around to muck things up. Weaving gestures effected by translucent swabs of color peppered with stumbly brushstrokes create moments of Fauvist vigor, distilling these vistas, at once grand and remote, into a kind of communion. The four smaller oils – 11 by 14 inches or 16 x 14 inches – highlight animals or insects. Perhaps because of the tighter field of vision, there’s less of a sense of wonder here, and they present as more matter-of-fact, like thumbnail images keyed to the wider world depicted in the larger work. They lend structure and cohesion to the show without detracting from its philosophical force. Brant cites the Japanese Buddhist poet Dögen Kigen, post-Impressionists such as Pierre Bonnard, and Chinese landscape painters as inspirations. These influences are clear. The artist steps into the river, and the wide world is new again.

“Mountains Like Rivers,” Platform Project Space, 20 Jay Street, #319, Brooklyn, NY. Through December 16, 2023.

About the author: Natasha Sweeten is a NY-based artist.

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