Current Exhibition
Group Show
Upcoming Exhibition
Pegan Brooke
Group Show
New Work By Gallery Artists
Jose Basso
Bryn Craig
James Leonard
GR Martin
Susan McDonnell
Greg Ragland
Daniel Tousignant
Sanjay Vora
April 25 - May 29, 2013
Open during
Larkspur Flower and Food Festival
May 26th, 11am - 6pm
with our local artists in attendance
from 3-5pm
Gallery Hours:
Thur-Sun 11-4 -or by appointment
Gallery Bergelli is presenting a group exhibition of new paintings by gallery artists Jose Basso, Bryn Craig, James Leonard, GR Martin, Susan McDonnell, Greg Ragland, Daniel Tousignant and, Sanjay Vora. Two of the featured artists, Jose Basso and Bryn Craig are profiled in Marin Magazine's May issue as winners of the popular "Get Covered," contest. The gallery will be open during the Larkspur Flower and Food Festival on Sunday May 26th with hours extended from 11am - 6pm, our local will be artists in attendance.
About the artists:
Jose Basso
Basso was born in Chile in 1949, he quickly attained fame and recognition in his own country, and by 1978 he had started exhibiting throughout Europe and the United States. The next two decades brought tremendous success including scholarships, awards, and multiple opportunities to represent his country in international juried exhibitions. His works have been admired and collected by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and the Queen of Spain Sophia de Borbon. Perhaps most notably, however, he was selected in 2007 to create a mural for the headquarters of the O.E.A. in Washington, D.C.
As a true master of contemporary art, Basso is admired not only for his tremendous skill but also for conceiving of a style that has never been executed before. Basso's landscapes are powerful in their simplicity and dramatic in their boldly contrasting colors. Punctuated only by minimal houses and trees, his horizons are at once intense and serene. In is Basso's ability to create such a dichotomy in a single harmonious work that sets him apart as one of the most innovative artists working today. The house is a concept representing a monolith of extinction, symbolizing not only a way to perish but also a way to return to life," he says.
"The house is a shelter representing the deepest aspirations of mankind - the place where everyone can feel secure before the persistent threat to life and individual freedoms."
Bryn Craig
Bryn Craig is invariably struck by the poetry of a place, a conventional beauty or harder to define character that reveals itself in an unusual light or unexpected angle. His oeuvre suggests an ongoing attraction to seemingly ordinary subjects, inviting comparisons to Edward Hopper, an artist Craig admires. They are scenes you want to walk into and Craig paints in a way that encourages you to linger and appreciate. Born in 1931 in Lansdale, PA, he studied at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, the Art Students League of New York, and taught at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. Mr. Craig has been a Marin resident since 1978. Bryn Craig is well known for his iconic images of Marin, often represented in scenes such as a darkened Larkspur street lit by the marquee of the Lark Theater, or the image of the house seen in this painting. The house is actually a structure in San Rafael and the truck and boat are taken from photos of Point Reyes Station, but Craig felt they would have more impact if he placed them into the meadow he reconstructed from an old watercolor. "The house in the meadow doesn't really exist, at least it doesn't exist as shown here," Craig says. "I was much taken by the building's strength and solidity, it should stand alone on a hill, lonely, but protecting those that live in it, so I moved it." - Excerpted from an article by Dan Jewett that appears in the May 2013 issue of Marin Magazine
James Leonard
James Leonard lives and works in the Northern California Bay Area. Leonard has been the subject of more than 20 solo exhibitions over the last eight years. His work is collected by individuals and corporations nationally and internationally.
"My paintings are also the attempt to integrate my profound respect for individuality with the process of making art. I work with in an introspective, intuitive fashion and strive to bring a personal sensibility to the work."
GR Martin
Martin has been painting professionally since 1997. His work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums that include, The Oakland Museum of California, The San Diego Museum of Art and The Masur Museum of Art.
Martin's highly detailed style puts his work within the realm of classical realism while his offbeat compositions create surreal environments that draw you in. Structured and focused, his work is also expansive and open to in-terpretation- encouraging you to find your own meaning within the ambiguity.
"Rex" is a beautiful peacock set against a vertically fading abstract background. The male's impressive plumes drape along the right side of the painting, drawing the viewer in; teasing the imagination to strive farther past the basic compositional elements of the painting.
"The bird's color is slightly off-natural and presents a crest of jewels rather than feathers. The background is faded from the top to draw attention to the detail on its head and face. Rex is a metaphorical representation." -Greg Martin
Susan McDonnell
Susan McDonnell's paintings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout the United States. She received a BA and MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Susan McDonnell uses egg tempera to make her paintings. Egg tempera paintings are known to maintain the brilliance of color through the centuries. "My paintings are combinations of what I perceive as real and underlying unseen elements of nature. My perceptions of nature are often defined by its patterns, delicacy and astonishingly exquisite details. I record the process of contemplative observation in the garden where there are microcosms of interconnected systems, aligning and flowing in and out of each other. It is a continual work in progress. The gardens I paint are reflections of the works in progress we call "our lives".
"These are simple collected treasures set on a stage, carefully lit, carefully drawn, then painted in egg tempera using thousands of brush strokes to weave an illusion poised on the threshold of reality."
Greg Ragland
Ragland was born in Augusta Georgia and grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He studied architecture at Arizona State University, received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California and his MFA from the University of Utah.
Greg Ragland's paintings have a sense of playful serenity about them. His colors and compositions flow together to create depth and movement of which his subject, the hummingbirds, are able to take flight within his work. The artist refers to the calming and bright backgrounds of his paintings as "Color Fields," in which these small energetic birds play. "My intent as the artist is for the viewer to get lost in the calming beauty of these spontaneous experiences in the nature within the seductive "Color Fields."
"Compostion and color are the key. I want to control, I want to predict the gaze of the viewer, where they enter and exit the painting"
Daniel Tousignant
Tousignant was born into a family saturated in the arts, and raised on a dairy farm in Minnesota, he started painting at the age of five. The unique spirit and energy of every scene he paints captures the subtleties of color and light. Daniel never ceases to bring delight and wonder to his body of work. Tousignant has attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Chicago Art Institute, Central School of Art in London, and the highly respected Royal Academy in London, England.
"I love recalling collective memories of peaceful horizons, creating environments with open, expansive, clear horizons - an old tree, a vista of pastureland, and the distant billowing clouds of my lazy youth."
Sanjay Vora
In his large-scale, multi-layered paintings, Sanjay Vora explores the realm of love, memory and nostalgia through a process of covering and retrieving representational, figurative scenes with layers of repetitive abstraction.
His works have been shown and collected throughout the United States including exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Italy and Washington D.C. Sanjay's latest group show, Portraits, was recently reviewed by DeWitt Cheng in the East Bay Express as well as Barbara Morris in the September/October 2011 issue of Art Ltd. Magazine. In 2002, he obtained a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia and received an MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. Sanjay is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Painting at the University of California, Berkeley, and he lives and works in Oakland, California.
"Let it last a little longer" is the script written into Vora's painting "Celebration". Through the veil of calligraphy we can make out a distant memory of a moment from the past. The work is one of only two pieces Vora used calligraphy in the composition.
"Celebration" is about a captured snapshot in time during my uncle's wedding in 1986. The phrase, "let it last a little longer", repeatedly scratches through and across the entire surface in an attempt to retrieve this joyous scene from my past which is inevitably unattainable. Ultimately, this piece is about the beauty of the process of longing and the result of all of the elements coming together. "-Sanjay Vora
Jose Basso
Bryn Craig
James Leonard
GR Martin
Susan McDonnell
Greg Ragland
Daniel Tousignant
Sanjay Vora
April 25 - May 29, 2013
Open during
Larkspur Flower and Food Festival
May 26th, 11am - 6pm
with our local artists in attendance
from 3-5pm
Gallery Hours:
Thur-Sun 11-4 -or by appointment
Gallery Bergelli is presenting a group exhibition of new paintings by gallery artists Jose Basso, Bryn Craig, James Leonard, GR Martin, Susan McDonnell, Greg Ragland, Daniel Tousignant and, Sanjay Vora. Two of the featured artists, Jose Basso and Bryn Craig are profiled in Marin Magazine's May issue as winners of the popular "Get Covered," contest. The gallery will be open during the Larkspur Flower and Food Festival on Sunday May 26th with hours extended from 11am - 6pm, our local will be artists in attendance.
About the artists:
Jose Basso
Basso was born in Chile in 1949, he quickly attained fame and recognition in his own country, and by 1978 he had started exhibiting throughout Europe and the United States. The next two decades brought tremendous success including scholarships, awards, and multiple opportunities to represent his country in international juried exhibitions. His works have been admired and collected by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and the Queen of Spain Sophia de Borbon. Perhaps most notably, however, he was selected in 2007 to create a mural for the headquarters of the O.E.A. in Washington, D.C.
As a true master of contemporary art, Basso is admired not only for his tremendous skill but also for conceiving of a style that has never been executed before. Basso's landscapes are powerful in their simplicity and dramatic in their boldly contrasting colors. Punctuated only by minimal houses and trees, his horizons are at once intense and serene. In is Basso's ability to create such a dichotomy in a single harmonious work that sets him apart as one of the most innovative artists working today. The house is a concept representing a monolith of extinction, symbolizing not only a way to perish but also a way to return to life," he says.
"The house is a shelter representing the deepest aspirations of mankind - the place where everyone can feel secure before the persistent threat to life and individual freedoms."
Bryn Craig
Bryn Craig is invariably struck by the poetry of a place, a conventional beauty or harder to define character that reveals itself in an unusual light or unexpected angle. His oeuvre suggests an ongoing attraction to seemingly ordinary subjects, inviting comparisons to Edward Hopper, an artist Craig admires. They are scenes you want to walk into and Craig paints in a way that encourages you to linger and appreciate. Born in 1931 in Lansdale, PA, he studied at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, the Art Students League of New York, and taught at the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. Mr. Craig has been a Marin resident since 1978. Bryn Craig is well known for his iconic images of Marin, often represented in scenes such as a darkened Larkspur street lit by the marquee of the Lark Theater, or the image of the house seen in this painting. The house is actually a structure in San Rafael and the truck and boat are taken from photos of Point Reyes Station, but Craig felt they would have more impact if he placed them into the meadow he reconstructed from an old watercolor. "The house in the meadow doesn't really exist, at least it doesn't exist as shown here," Craig says. "I was much taken by the building's strength and solidity, it should stand alone on a hill, lonely, but protecting those that live in it, so I moved it." - Excerpted from an article by Dan Jewett that appears in the May 2013 issue of Marin Magazine
James Leonard
James Leonard lives and works in the Northern California Bay Area. Leonard has been the subject of more than 20 solo exhibitions over the last eight years. His work is collected by individuals and corporations nationally and internationally.
"My paintings are also the attempt to integrate my profound respect for individuality with the process of making art. I work with in an introspective, intuitive fashion and strive to bring a personal sensibility to the work."
GR Martin
Martin has been painting professionally since 1997. His work has been exhibited nationally in galleries and museums that include, The Oakland Museum of California, The San Diego Museum of Art and The Masur Museum of Art.
Martin's highly detailed style puts his work within the realm of classical realism while his offbeat compositions create surreal environments that draw you in. Structured and focused, his work is also expansive and open to in-terpretation- encouraging you to find your own meaning within the ambiguity.
"Rex" is a beautiful peacock set against a vertically fading abstract background. The male's impressive plumes drape along the right side of the painting, drawing the viewer in; teasing the imagination to strive farther past the basic compositional elements of the painting.
"The bird's color is slightly off-natural and presents a crest of jewels rather than feathers. The background is faded from the top to draw attention to the detail on its head and face. Rex is a metaphorical representation." -Greg Martin
Susan McDonnell
Susan McDonnell's paintings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout the United States. She received a BA and MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Susan McDonnell uses egg tempera to make her paintings. Egg tempera paintings are known to maintain the brilliance of color through the centuries. "My paintings are combinations of what I perceive as real and underlying unseen elements of nature. My perceptions of nature are often defined by its patterns, delicacy and astonishingly exquisite details. I record the process of contemplative observation in the garden where there are microcosms of interconnected systems, aligning and flowing in and out of each other. It is a continual work in progress. The gardens I paint are reflections of the works in progress we call "our lives".
"These are simple collected treasures set on a stage, carefully lit, carefully drawn, then painted in egg tempera using thousands of brush strokes to weave an illusion poised on the threshold of reality."
Greg Ragland
Ragland was born in Augusta Georgia and grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He studied architecture at Arizona State University, received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California and his MFA from the University of Utah.
Greg Ragland's paintings have a sense of playful serenity about them. His colors and compositions flow together to create depth and movement of which his subject, the hummingbirds, are able to take flight within his work. The artist refers to the calming and bright backgrounds of his paintings as "Color Fields," in which these small energetic birds play. "My intent as the artist is for the viewer to get lost in the calming beauty of these spontaneous experiences in the nature within the seductive "Color Fields."
"Compostion and color are the key. I want to control, I want to predict the gaze of the viewer, where they enter and exit the painting"
Daniel Tousignant
Tousignant was born into a family saturated in the arts, and raised on a dairy farm in Minnesota, he started painting at the age of five. The unique spirit and energy of every scene he paints captures the subtleties of color and light. Daniel never ceases to bring delight and wonder to his body of work. Tousignant has attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Chicago Art Institute, Central School of Art in London, and the highly respected Royal Academy in London, England.
"I love recalling collective memories of peaceful horizons, creating environments with open, expansive, clear horizons - an old tree, a vista of pastureland, and the distant billowing clouds of my lazy youth."
Sanjay Vora
In his large-scale, multi-layered paintings, Sanjay Vora explores the realm of love, memory and nostalgia through a process of covering and retrieving representational, figurative scenes with layers of repetitive abstraction.
His works have been shown and collected throughout the United States including exhibitions in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Italy and Washington D.C. Sanjay's latest group show, Portraits, was recently reviewed by DeWitt Cheng in the East Bay Express as well as Barbara Morris in the September/October 2011 issue of Art Ltd. Magazine. In 2002, he obtained a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia and received an MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2005. Sanjay is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Painting at the University of California, Berkeley, and he lives and works in Oakland, California.
"Let it last a little longer" is the script written into Vora's painting "Celebration". Through the veil of calligraphy we can make out a distant memory of a moment from the past. The work is one of only two pieces Vora used calligraphy in the composition.
"Celebration" is about a captured snapshot in time during my uncle's wedding in 1986. The phrase, "let it last a little longer", repeatedly scratches through and across the entire surface in an attempt to retrieve this joyous scene from my past which is inevitably unattainable. Ultimately, this piece is about the beauty of the process of longing and the result of all of the elements coming together. "-Sanjay Vora
Upcoming Exhibition
Pegan Brooke
Ten Years of Water
June 6 - July 10, 2013
Reception: Sat, June 8, 4 - 6pm
Artist Talk at 5pm
"These pictures will captivate you, if you let them. But as with other equally subtle work, you need to empty your mind of daily distractions for their whispery eloquence to reach you. " - Robert L. Pincus, San Diego Union Tribune
View Paintings by Pegan Brooke
Gallery Bergelli is proud to announce "Ten Years of Water" a solo exhibition of paintings by Bay Area artist Pegan Brooke. Opening June 6, with the Gallery Reception on June 8th from 4-6pm, and Artist Talk at 5pm, the exhibition continues through July 10, 2013.
Pegan Brooke creates ethereal abstract works that take their cues from the natural environment. Marked by rising and receding color fields, structured by natural patterns and rhythms, "Brooke's canvases communicate a sense of awe of the world around her, enveloping the viewer in meditative depictions of beauty that alternately soothe and stimulate. Her imagery is both familiar and otherworldly, inviting reflection and suggesting the possibility for transcendence by contemplation." - Anne C. Ray, Marin Magazine
30 paintings created in the last ten years will be presented in this survey exhibition. "Ten Years of Water" will consist of colorful river paintings inspired by observation of the river in Pont Aven, France, together with a collection of subtle Sea paintings inspired by the Bolinas Coast as well as the gorgeous shimmery canvases from the most recent body of work inspired by the high snow mountains in Sun Valley.
Pegan Brooke's paintings have been exhibited for many years, including exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, SFMOMA, Oakland Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center and Museum, Sao Paulo Biennale and the Monterey Museum of Art. Brooke is a recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Artist Grant, two Marin Arts Council Grants, and an alternate award for the Prix de Rome. She was also awarded Artist in Residency fellowships at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York and five residencies at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France. Brooke's paintings have been reviewed in numerous publications, including The LA Times, The SF Examiner, The New York Times and Art in America. Pegan Brooke's work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, U.S. Embassies in Sri Lanka and Bolivia, Mills College, University of Nebraska Art Museum, State of Iowa Capitol Building, Bank of America International Headquarters, Standard Oil Corporation, Prudential Insurance Company, Security Pacific Bank, Oracle Headquarters, Meredith Corporation, McDonald Corporation, The Principal Financial Group, Unocal Corporation, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Anderson Collection, Roselyn Swig Collection, Charles R. Schwab, and Steven Chase Collection.
Exhibition Catalog Essay
The Dragon's Whisper
A Note on Pegan Brooke's Recent Paintings
by Mark Van Proyen
The ancient sages of China believed in dragons. These were not the leather-winged fire-breathers of medieval European legend: instead, they were dragons of a more ethereal breed. They were animistic personifications of the invisible spirit energies that infuse every aspect of the natural world, and they were crucial to any understanding of how those sages understood that world. Sometimes the spirit dragons of Asia were pictured as giant grimacing serpents whose muscular coils were exaggerated mimics of the unseen undulations of land, river and sky. More often however, they were not pictured at all, and could only be understood by the discerning eye as evocative hints of the invisible forces that exert a pull on the visible components revealed in the sublime vistas of river, mountain and sky that were so characteristic of landscape paintings of the T'ang and Sung dynasties. Through those images, and more importantly, through the way that they were painted, viewers were and still are led to the recognition that the whole of the natural world is alive and intertwined at the deepest level of being. And this lesson extends to all of the great traditions of Asian painting, whether or not they were based on the shapeliness of the calligraphic gesture or on visualizing the soft grandeur of the Yangtse river gorge.
Invisible dragons also haunt and animate Pegan Brooke's recent series of landscape-inspired abstract paintings. The cursory glance tells us that these predominantly tonalist works are elegant gradations of oil paint infiltrated with subtle inflections of unpredictable chromatic additions that make them shimmer in the light of a closer scrutiny. Their scale is neither seductively small nor declaratively large, meaning that their guileless invitation to intimate gazing is perfectly balanced by their confident intrusion into the social spaces that they might inhabit, never brash, noisy or pretentious, and certainly never willing to lapse into the visual gimmickry that is all-too-often seen in recent exhibitions of contemporary art. With that much said, it is also important to note the countervailing fact that Brooke's paintings never lapse into any ingratiating coyness for the sake of giving the viewer too much easy comfort. Certainly the work is nothing if not generous in its spirit of luxuriant visual pleasure, but is makes a few demands on the viewer's knowledge of the history of painting along the way, simply because they know that the position that they take in relation to that history is part of how they function in the world.
The paint in the most recent body of work is slightly thicker than was the case in years past, and their color is significantly subdued, emphasizing a more austere tonality tinctured with hints of color that look like fleeting refractions of light. In previous bodies of work, vibrant color played a more crucial role in Brooke's paintings. Those earlier efforts featured gradations of two or three closely related richly hued colors, and it was never hard to see how any individual painting would shift from presenting graphic variations of those colors to emphasizing how they could be seen as invitations to see their rich pools of color as a vast spatial vista. It is worth noting that those earlier paintings were painted in a studio in Bolinas, California that was but a short walk from a tall cliff that looked down and out and upon the vast ocean reaching out to a distant horizon. As stunning and brilliant as the color of those paintings are, their real inspirations had to be play of light and atmosphere bred by the breathtaking magenta sunsets of that place's fall and spring seasons. The more recent paintings were executed in studio in the high mountain environs of Sun Valley, Idaho, where thinner air and frosty light are the central themes of everyday seeing. As has always been the case, Brooke's paintings have followed the suit of how nature is immediately experienced, meaning that the new works can be seen to reflect the rugged rawness of rockface and snowscape. But the work is still haunted by the ebb and flow of the energies of nature, even as their attention has moved further from the chop and crest of the ocean's surface, and much closer to the energies that underlie the sheer drama of high mountain geology.
Brooke's paintings force the viewer to decelerate from the condition of high velocity image consumption that is so characteristic of various forms of electronic media. In this emphasis on deceleration, they are very much of a piece with the work of Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), that Bolognese master of meditative tonality. Like Morandi's work, Brooke's decelerated paintings bring the viewer back to a condition of experience where the inner clock of being can better coordinate with the outer clock of social requirement, and in so doing, align that work with the way that the body absorbs and grows into and through actual experience rather than mere sensation. Indeed, their layering of pigment bears an uncanny resemblance to the ways that geographical topographies layer themselves over the course of geological time. In grounding the viewer's experience in this kind of decelerated time, they also celebrate the gains of wisdom that come from the accretion of worldly experience, this in subtle opposition to the empty timelessness of perpetual sensation that goes everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Mark Van Proyen is a Bay Area-based art critic, corresponding editor for Art in America, and has also published in Art News, Art Criticism, Artweek, ArtNet, Bad Subjects and Square Cylinder. He is Associate Professor at the San Francisco Art Institute.
June 6 - July 10, 2013
Reception: Sat, June 8, 4 - 6pm
Artist Talk at 5pm
"These pictures will captivate you, if you let them. But as with other equally subtle work, you need to empty your mind of daily distractions for their whispery eloquence to reach you. " - Robert L. Pincus, San Diego Union Tribune
View Paintings by Pegan Brooke
Gallery Bergelli is proud to announce "Ten Years of Water" a solo exhibition of paintings by Bay Area artist Pegan Brooke. Opening June 6, with the Gallery Reception on June 8th from 4-6pm, and Artist Talk at 5pm, the exhibition continues through July 10, 2013.
Pegan Brooke creates ethereal abstract works that take their cues from the natural environment. Marked by rising and receding color fields, structured by natural patterns and rhythms, "Brooke's canvases communicate a sense of awe of the world around her, enveloping the viewer in meditative depictions of beauty that alternately soothe and stimulate. Her imagery is both familiar and otherworldly, inviting reflection and suggesting the possibility for transcendence by contemplation." - Anne C. Ray, Marin Magazine
30 paintings created in the last ten years will be presented in this survey exhibition. "Ten Years of Water" will consist of colorful river paintings inspired by observation of the river in Pont Aven, France, together with a collection of subtle Sea paintings inspired by the Bolinas Coast as well as the gorgeous shimmery canvases from the most recent body of work inspired by the high snow mountains in Sun Valley.
Pegan Brooke's paintings have been exhibited for many years, including exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, SFMOMA, Oakland Museum, San Diego Museum of Art, Des Moines Art Center and Museum, Sao Paulo Biennale and the Monterey Museum of Art. Brooke is a recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Artist Grant, two Marin Arts Council Grants, and an alternate award for the Prix de Rome. She was also awarded Artist in Residency fellowships at the Millay Colony for the Arts in New York and five residencies at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in France. Brooke's paintings have been reviewed in numerous publications, including The LA Times, The SF Examiner, The New York Times and Art in America. Pegan Brooke's work is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, U.S. Embassies in Sri Lanka and Bolivia, Mills College, University of Nebraska Art Museum, State of Iowa Capitol Building, Bank of America International Headquarters, Standard Oil Corporation, Prudential Insurance Company, Security Pacific Bank, Oracle Headquarters, Meredith Corporation, McDonald Corporation, The Principal Financial Group, Unocal Corporation, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Anderson Collection, Roselyn Swig Collection, Charles R. Schwab, and Steven Chase Collection.
Exhibition Catalog Essay
The Dragon's Whisper
A Note on Pegan Brooke's Recent Paintings
by Mark Van Proyen
The ancient sages of China believed in dragons. These were not the leather-winged fire-breathers of medieval European legend: instead, they were dragons of a more ethereal breed. They were animistic personifications of the invisible spirit energies that infuse every aspect of the natural world, and they were crucial to any understanding of how those sages understood that world. Sometimes the spirit dragons of Asia were pictured as giant grimacing serpents whose muscular coils were exaggerated mimics of the unseen undulations of land, river and sky. More often however, they were not pictured at all, and could only be understood by the discerning eye as evocative hints of the invisible forces that exert a pull on the visible components revealed in the sublime vistas of river, mountain and sky that were so characteristic of landscape paintings of the T'ang and Sung dynasties. Through those images, and more importantly, through the way that they were painted, viewers were and still are led to the recognition that the whole of the natural world is alive and intertwined at the deepest level of being. And this lesson extends to all of the great traditions of Asian painting, whether or not they were based on the shapeliness of the calligraphic gesture or on visualizing the soft grandeur of the Yangtse river gorge.
Invisible dragons also haunt and animate Pegan Brooke's recent series of landscape-inspired abstract paintings. The cursory glance tells us that these predominantly tonalist works are elegant gradations of oil paint infiltrated with subtle inflections of unpredictable chromatic additions that make them shimmer in the light of a closer scrutiny. Their scale is neither seductively small nor declaratively large, meaning that their guileless invitation to intimate gazing is perfectly balanced by their confident intrusion into the social spaces that they might inhabit, never brash, noisy or pretentious, and certainly never willing to lapse into the visual gimmickry that is all-too-often seen in recent exhibitions of contemporary art. With that much said, it is also important to note the countervailing fact that Brooke's paintings never lapse into any ingratiating coyness for the sake of giving the viewer too much easy comfort. Certainly the work is nothing if not generous in its spirit of luxuriant visual pleasure, but is makes a few demands on the viewer's knowledge of the history of painting along the way, simply because they know that the position that they take in relation to that history is part of how they function in the world.
The paint in the most recent body of work is slightly thicker than was the case in years past, and their color is significantly subdued, emphasizing a more austere tonality tinctured with hints of color that look like fleeting refractions of light. In previous bodies of work, vibrant color played a more crucial role in Brooke's paintings. Those earlier efforts featured gradations of two or three closely related richly hued colors, and it was never hard to see how any individual painting would shift from presenting graphic variations of those colors to emphasizing how they could be seen as invitations to see their rich pools of color as a vast spatial vista. It is worth noting that those earlier paintings were painted in a studio in Bolinas, California that was but a short walk from a tall cliff that looked down and out and upon the vast ocean reaching out to a distant horizon. As stunning and brilliant as the color of those paintings are, their real inspirations had to be play of light and atmosphere bred by the breathtaking magenta sunsets of that place's fall and spring seasons. The more recent paintings were executed in studio in the high mountain environs of Sun Valley, Idaho, where thinner air and frosty light are the central themes of everyday seeing. As has always been the case, Brooke's paintings have followed the suit of how nature is immediately experienced, meaning that the new works can be seen to reflect the rugged rawness of rockface and snowscape. But the work is still haunted by the ebb and flow of the energies of nature, even as their attention has moved further from the chop and crest of the ocean's surface, and much closer to the energies that underlie the sheer drama of high mountain geology.
Brooke's paintings force the viewer to decelerate from the condition of high velocity image consumption that is so characteristic of various forms of electronic media. In this emphasis on deceleration, they are very much of a piece with the work of Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), that Bolognese master of meditative tonality. Like Morandi's work, Brooke's decelerated paintings bring the viewer back to a condition of experience where the inner clock of being can better coordinate with the outer clock of social requirement, and in so doing, align that work with the way that the body absorbs and grows into and through actual experience rather than mere sensation. Indeed, their layering of pigment bears an uncanny resemblance to the ways that geographical topographies layer themselves over the course of geological time. In grounding the viewer's experience in this kind of decelerated time, they also celebrate the gains of wisdom that come from the accretion of worldly experience, this in subtle opposition to the empty timelessness of perpetual sensation that goes everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Mark Van Proyen is a Bay Area-based art critic, corresponding editor for Art in America, and has also published in Art News, Art Criticism, Artweek, ArtNet, Bad Subjects and Square Cylinder. He is Associate Professor at the San Francisco Art Institute.
