We Went To: A Landscape Show -Grimaldis Gallery
https://www.cgrimaldisgallery.com/current
What’s on view?:
C Grimaldis’ current exhibition takes seven artists’ perspectives on the role of landscape in contemporary art. From the expressionist immediacy of late MICA president Eugene “Bud” Leake to the brutalist drawings of Erin Fostel, “A Landscape Show” hosts an array of artistic directions that come together with the dynamism of nature itself.
Ian: This is a landscape show, but I think it’s interesting how a lot of these pieces imply a human presence.
Liam: Yeah, you see it very clearly with Erin Fostel’s drawings of Baltimore, but even more subtly throughout the exhibition. A fence here, a road there, someone rowing a boat in the distance. Then there are Andrea Evan’s drawings which just look like average shrubbery, but are actually invasive species that humans have introduced to Maryland.
Ian: A lot of the time when I’m outside I’ll look at the power lines or something cutting across the sky and in the way of trees and think, ‘oh, what an interruption to nature.’ But at the same time, there’s something beautiful in that sort of division between things.
Liam: Right, these paintings would be totally different without the implied human presence. Not necessarily any better or worse, but different for sure. It’s especially cool to think about considering a lot of this work is supposed to be landscapes of Maryland.
Ian: Exactly, I’m looking at this huge painting by Eugene Leake, “After the August Rain”, and it’s so familiar to me. Like a farm I’ve driven by in Damascus or something.
Liam: And yet, you could even look at some of these and assume they’re of the European countryside. Part of that might just be his style.
Ian: Right, very impressionistic.
Liam: Then he gets a little Fauve-y a couple of years later.
Ian: The varying levels of abstraction in this exhibit are so fun because you can kinda draw lines back to these various movements and influences. Like I look at the paintings by Robert Dash in the corner and they remind me of Art Nouveau; I turn around and Raoul Middleman’s watercolour paintings look like they came out of a copy of The Blue Rider’s magazine.
Liam: There’s definitely something for everyone here. I’m not super into the ultra-desolation of her Baltimore landscapes, but I’m so drawn to this desert landscape by Erin Fostel.
Ian: What makes it different from the other works she has on view to you?
Liam: Honestly, the drabness she treated Baltimore with as a subject doesn’t really align with my experience of the city. I read this work represents her grief for her dead father, but it’s hard for me to look at any of it and see the Baltimore I know, you know? This, on the other hand, is just a wonderful anomaly to me. The use of space in this piece is so interesting.
Old Eastern Pumping Station 2, Latrobe Homes, and Ceaseless agitation gives rise to the sublime, Erin Fostel
A Landscape Show
https://www.cgrimaldisgallery.com/current
523 N Charles St 21201
Baltimore, MD
March 16 – April 24
Artists: Erin Fostel, Raoul Middleman
Ian: Yeah, the size of the fence on the ground really throws me off. Looking straight on you think the viewer is not far from ground level, but the fence below makes you realize you’re pretty high up. Really disorienting.
Liam: Even the placement of this piece in the exhibit is kind of disorienting. It’s set aside from Fostel’s other work and kinda sits in its hyper-realistic, black and white glory like an alien amongst the more abstract landscapes.
Ian: I’m probably most drawn to the watercolor paintings by Raoul Middleman. I like how they look kind of chaotic, but always a little incomplete.
Greenmount, Raoul Middleman
Liam: Reminds me of Kandinsky. Of work from the war in general.
Ian: Yeah, I think all these landscapes instill yearning in their own ways and that reminds me of the wartime expressionist’s position. They make you feel calm, but also make you wonder why you can’t just exist they way that nature exists. I want to just jump into these paintings where things seem kind of settled. There’s a shadow of human presence in them, but they feel very removed from the trauma of being human.
Liam: Absolutely, these all feel like places to take refuge to. I guess that’s been the big purpose of landscape in the history of art— to remind people that we are also living things that can achieve the kind of peace we see in nature.