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Art Review |
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By: Donaldo Altamirano, Honduras "Truth is movement,
process and within it, calm" The most enriching discoveries and successes in the art world do not take place instantly nor are they generated spontaneously. Usually, they are the result of a lengthy, arduous and laborious process. A disciplined and vigilant artist works for long periods alone and in silence - constantly challenging and confronting contemporary issues along with their own personal experiences. Self-criticism is an essential tool, the 'conditio sine qua non' of improving and developing any artistic project. On the 9th November 2000, Panamanian artist, Olga Sinclair (1957), presents 16 oil paintings at Portales Gallery in Tegucigalpa. This current exhibition offers us a propitious opportunity to reflect upon the artistic trajectory of this Central American painter. PROCESS The mere title of the exhibition indicates an artist conscious of her own evolutionary movement. The term "Process" alludes to an uninterrupted sequence of events, structural vigour, a series of transformations, periods and sequences that are ordered within the strict logic of an evolutionary chain. A phrase comes to mind that succinctly sums up the view-point that defines and guides the evolution of Olga Sinclair's paintings when analyzing and contextualizing this current juncture in relation to her artistic direction. This phrase is a brief and exact aphorism, set in bronze as a good guideline by the architect, Mies van der Rohe: "Less is more". Less is more. Strictly applying this principle to Olga's work, one notices that this artist has harnessed the potential and wherewithal of 'meaning' through a geometric progression along with the reduction of elements and expressive appearances. In her painting, Olga Sinclair has divulged a series of components (gradually and at times hardly perceivable) that end up making her work even more poetically enchanting. Analyzing the different elements that define this present body of work against what might have previously defined it, one notices the deliberate and intentional exclusion of certain anecdotal allusions and formal compositional technique that has always been part of this artist's language. This exclusion is in itself part of the metamorphosis. OPINIONS Commentators of her work (several and worldwide), have tried to define her style with references such as "a woman that paints women", or cataloguing her work as "nostalgic" and "sentimental", or trying to categorize their religious content or her relationship with her well-known father, also a painter, as continuing in his style. The present exhibition demonstrates completely how she escapes, surpasses and defies those classifications through her own personal attitude of self-criticism, detachment and resignation to past allusions. At the end of the day, a law of compensation prevails (less is more) and the deliberate absences emphasize the pictorial qualities of the artist, her dominion of the principles of abstraction, the power of her draftsmanship and her mature language of colour. The result is a body of work whose language is objective, imaginative and fashioned without 'sentimentality'. An 'oeuvre' whose purity and strength causes difficulty for the spoken word. Having said this, we are left with paintings that are cleansed spiritually - freed of sentimentality and susceptibility. Finally, various pre-conceptions have disappeared leaving a current interpretation that is at once difficult and complex. Yet the rejection of former misreckonings has its own generous rewards. THE INGENIOUS FORGE OF COLOUR Olga Sinclair paints a black base on linen. On top of this background, pastel tones unfold in pristine tonalities that give a clarity to 'grey' through the carefully calculated transparencies of 'black' that cause a 'suggestion' within an otherwise, flat zone. The subtlety of these hues stands out sufficiently to escape what might be the contemporary classification of a colour scale. The creation of Olga's palette begins with the basic preparation of her canvases - the pastel tones are all hues of grey. Beiges, siennas, greens and lilacs are all soft tones in which the original base of black shows through them. The application of paint is not heavily textured. Her pigment is diluted, thinned and so light as if created by an invisible brushstroke. What appears looks more like the evaporation of atmosphere than material solidity. THE FIGURE Her treatment of the human figure shows an excellent mastery of draftsmanship, of movement, of physical force, of skeletal and muscular anatomy, the flexing and contracting of muscle are like high volts of emotional expression that are one of the key factors to the Sinclair poetic. Long hours of academic discipline and study in the anatomical structure of the human frame are clearly seen. Added to which, an intensity of facial expression - sometimes glazed over or simply insinuated, or reduced to a minimal impression using very few brushstrokes - that reinforces the dramatic might. In some cases, the outline of the figure is not detailed. Sometimes the figures are incomplete, clipped by the edges of the canvas. Hands, feet, faces might appear sketched to represent mass rather than detail (for example, "A Prayer to Francis" and "The Juggler"). Undulating lines of black paint and a few random brushstrokes insinuate a human profile and as a result, 'a sketch' in painterly terms is reassessed. As far as trying to classify into 'school' and 'tendency', Olga's style comes together in ways that, at times, seems almost irreconcilable. Abstraction, figurative, geometric, expressionistic, informalism and 'tachiste'. Elements of all of these find a kind of synthesis within her own syntax and show her harmony of these elements to be cosmopolitan in the purest sense. Her titles also are polyglot in this sense - English, French and Italian titles are frequently used. In sum, the harmonious conjunction of these qualities, gives Sinclair's work an indisputable air of the present time, of trembling modernity. Along with her rigorous and exact sense of composition, there is a dynamic yet meditated informalism - a gestural agility along with bold and brash strokes. All are subject to strict control yet used with discretion, moderation, talent and grace. Similarly, the still lives that Olga paints are not literal interpretations of fruit or earthenware vessels. They are allusions, recreations and references - visual metaphor. In her case, a still life doesn't have to be literal to be understood but is used as a reference to a system of composition in which an invisible structure remains aloof to the sub-strata of ideal forms. The Panamanian painter breaks with the more traditional characteristics of this type of composition. The tranquil life of her compositions transform themselves into a vigorous dialogue of energy and urgency yet unite themselves through a subtle network of relationship. ASCETICISM AND FULLNESS Let us emphasize the 'absences' that enhance the aesthetic strength of her paintings. Note the absence of landscape; is this an urban painting, is it lyrical, is it 'intellectual'? Note the absence of decorative elements. There is no depiction of interiors, furniture, no paintings on walls, no domestic life, no 'stage set'. Her work is free from 'accessories' and has no superfluity. One focuses exclusively on the dramatic quality of a gesture, the progressive perfection of form and on an inner dialogue whose tonalities are exceptional. The present Olga Sinclair is fortified by her own resignation which are significantly expressed through her work. It is a privileged moment of creative lucidity, the complete maturity of an audacious and bold painter of tone and colour. The paintings presently exhibited are of continued 'quality', thematic and stylistic coherence - that reflect austerity, discipline and beauty. Having made a considered 'shift' towards a rigorous compositional catharsis, Olga Sinclair's unique conceptual vigour culminates in fullness from a centre of absolute calm and silence.
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