"Black and White" at Nancy Hoffman Gallery. In this exquisite show, nine artists from very different backgrounds demonstrated how much can be expressed without color. Just as black-and-white photographs sometimes capture more fully the character of their subjects than do color photographs, these etchings and watercolors allow us to see more easily the essential nature of their subjects. There is a transparency that is sometimes clouded by color. Interestingly, six works in the show represented flowers. with tulips favored. No doubt the artists were attracted to their beautiful symmetry.
The British artists Lucy Mackenzie, who grew up on the Isles of Scilly, contributed a delicate ink-and-pencil drawing, Tulip and Bowl (1998). It shows the flower in a horizontal position, hovering over the bowl as if in conversation. Deceptively simple, it conveys the extraordinary in the ordinary. Joseph Raffael's gorgeous watercolor Hydrangea (1975) bursts with vitality. Finely detailed, it invites one into the lush midst of the flower. Raffael is a long-time resident of Antibes, in the south of France, and the crystalline light of the region suffuses his painting
Bill Richards's bleached-out graphite drawing, Hershey Park III (2003), provides an intimate view of a flower against a bed of grasses and leaves, with shadows indicating the intense heat of the sun. As eloquently, Susan Norrie portrays three simple everyday scenes from a children's playground: playing in a treehouse, a performance, and a game. All resonate like finely wrought short stories.
-Valerie Gladstone
ARTnews
November 2003