On Friday June 13, 40 art lovers across the spectrum drifted in and out of Anne Beliveau’s gallery, Studio Connexion, to view the latest show by Burton media artist Denyse Marshall.
This is the second time Marshall’s work has been exhibited at Studio Connexion. Her first show was a partnership with artist Holly Woods and featured a series of still life and landscape scenes in acrylic and watercolors. Anne was “really pleased with Denyse’s work” and invited Marshall to do a solo show. Now out of the throes of winter and armed with a new series of paintings, Marshall has returned to the comfortable studio on Fifth Avenue to showcase her collection of landscape paintings for a show entitled Explorations.
“We titled this show Explorations because I am exploring what my style is,” she said. “I am having so much fun starting painting and knowing that if I make a mistake it doesn’t matter. I am just exploring a technique or I am challenging myself.”
Winter and fall themes are prominent in the exhibit, as is the color purple which echoes through scenes of wintered woods and abstract visions of the inside of an unnamed canyon.
“I love the colors,” said Beliveau. “They are very vibrant: (Marshall’s) work is very loose and she paints very comfortably,” she added.
With titles such as Snow Showers, Entangled, and After the Fire, Marshall immerses her audience into an impressionistic rediscovery of familiar landscapes. The series toys with the viewer’s sense of the Arrow Lakes region by either employing prominent landmarks, such as the Thor and Odin mountains, or simply focusing on a single scene to achieve the illustrated equivalent of a synecdoche. Viewing Marshall’s work is an act of travel itself; take for example the fluid piece titled Hilda Bowl, which depicts a microcosm representation of an area frequented by local snowboarders. Viewers who are familiar with the snow sport or the area can’t help but pine for the heady days of winter and eye-trace the carving lines between the trees and down the painting. Others may just appreciate the invitation to visually visit the Hilda Bowl and marvel at the tranquility of an untouched, powdery mountain slope.
When asked if Marshall discovered anything about herself during her exploration, she commented, “I discovered that lots of times artists are attracted to light and shadow, but what I realized is that what I am really attracted to is the form something takes.”