Continuing through July 16, 2011
Judith Liebe’s “Asian Landscape” is dominated by a large, luminous blue body of water in its center that draws us in. Bamboo shoots float in the water, while red foliage at the bottom and a bank of trees toward the top provide an unusual framework for a landscape with rich layers of paint. This piece, as well as several other paintings, has what Liebe calls, ”the complexity of its physicality through the application of the paint.” She adds, “It is here that we find the difference between an ephemeral installation and a painting, which is surrounded by powerful silence.”
Her painstakingly handled landscapes of ocean, sky, cornfields, foliage, trees and rocks, with varying horizon lines emphasize contemplative qualities. The artist’s imagination is directed to transform a scene into a formal arrangement that stimulates the viewer’s. Liebe’s “Finnish Landscape,” with its very high horizon line, depicts a complex, magnificent world below that line - one of fields with rock formations, rough foliage, fields and a small stream. What might have become an overly busy series of trivial moments emerges as an absorbing composition.
Published courtesy of ArtSceneCal ©2011
