Lillian Burwell A detail of the installation "Water People," in which a crystal clear acrylic lake tops a white painted wood base. Openings for colorful organic forms punctuate the surface.

• 
• 
E.J. Montgomery In Montgomery's intaglio print "Letters to Mom," calligraphic forms simulate writing, but remain mysterious in a richly textured and layered surface.

Lillian Burwell A detail of the installation "Water People," in which a crystal clear acrylic lake tops a white painted wood base. Openings for colorful organic forms punctuate the surface.

 

<< Prev

Next >>

More News

Broad Creek Historic District highlights ‘blending of cultures’

Prince George’s seasonal industries in recovery mode

Frederick County students asked to prepare for new standardized tests over summer break

School board:?Students need more options for technology credit

Capital budget includes money for Bethesda Metro station, Wheaton redevelopment

Flowing with brilliant color and expressive form, recent work by Evangeline Juliette Montgomery (E.J. as she is better known) and Lillian Thomas Burwell, is now on view at the Brentwood Arts Exchange.

This spacious and light-filled gallery, located in the Gateway Arts Center on Rhode Island Avenue, nearly pulses with energy emanating from these largely abstract works, creating an ambiance that engages the viewer into a rich visual dialogue with strong poetic overtones.

“Rivers and Memories” provides guests with a rare opportunity to see the product of decades-long studio practices that have not stagnated either in content or media, but rather, have evolved over time, achieving a level of accomplishment that is the unique parameter of artists of this caliber.

Timed to coincide with Black History and Women’s History months, the exhibit brings together the work of two cultural pillars of the Washington metro area. A catalogue documenting the exhibit with essays by Sondra Arkin and Claude Elliot is now in preparation.

The selection of Montgomery’s prints includes examples of various methods and processes. Most of the works on exhibit explore textures, and are often densely layered. This layering reflects the artist’s interest in memory and ancestry, and her intent to convey deeply-felt meaning through visual metaphor and abstract language. Among her better known series are those which contain calligraphic marks. These she terms her “written works” on paper. The intaglio steel plate used to make four of the prints in the exhibit is also on view, featuring rows of these calligraphic forms or characters resembling writing, but whose precise meaning is unknown. For Montgomery, this brings a quality of communication to these works that is non-specific and polyvalent. They are like texts that are read by seeing the color and texture surrounding them as much as the characters themselves. Each is distinct, but many of the titles for these prints — “Letter to Mother” or “Letters to Mom” — suggest universal ideas of memory and recall on a personal level, while bringing early writing, such as Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets or ancient rock paintings, to mind. A similar effect is achieved in Montgomery’s serigraphs, such as the lightning blue “Sanctuary” tightly packed with small marks and multiple layers.

Burwell was formally trained as a painter in New York in the 1950s, soaking up the heady atmosphere of that time and place, and later earned her BFA from Catholic University. She had a long career teaching in the D.C. public school system, including the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and her history nurturing and mentoring young artists, along with her own deeply spiritual proclivities, are strongly evident this new work.

All of Burwell’s work here crosses the line between two- and three-dimensional art. She has developed a finely-crafted technique by carving 4-inch thick sugar pine into swelling organic forms — often wing, leaf or fish-like — and carefully stretching painted canvas over them. The resulting shaped oil paintings/sculptures feature soft and modulated colors, often responding to poetic texts that accompany the works. Paint surfaces are controlled and the canvas fits tightly, becoming one with the wood. Most works also include pieces of crystal clear sheet acrylic or Plexiglas that the artist designs separately before combining with wood and canvas. Reflective surfaces of the plastic seem like shadows of the painted elements, creating spirit-like additions. The effect is very striking.

“Water People,” Burwell’s installation piece, is the most impressive in the exhibit. Here the Plexiglas (cut for the artist by Keith Manuel) takes on a more active role, mimicking the effect of water flowing over a solid wood base. A few painted sculptural forms can be seen popping up from the base and through the plastic form, like water creatures or plants below the surface. Painted on the “water” are the names of people who have been especially meaningful to the artist throughout her long life, in particular the “water people,” of whom she writes, “flow over/and between/the rocky parts of life/making all things smoothed and soothed/and for a purpose.” The work has to be seen to understand the powerful feelings it expresses through this visual/literary metaphor. This is an exhibit not to be missed.