The small oil "Singular Rock, Monhegan" points to the "Fissures" series of monoprints. In "Fissures #5" an angular colored mass fills the picture and is overlaid with dark lines that seem to be fissures in the rock. "Fissures #6" has a similar, but differently colored mass and is overlaid with the same pattern of lines, as near as I can tell. She has identified parts of the scene on the island that she finds most resonant, and made pictures of them. The rocks and fissures strike a chord she shares with her viewers.
To some degree Prellwitz and Torlen are on either side of the modernist continental divide. For Torlen, the implied narration is the central theme of the painting, and he deploys his impressive skills it its service. For Prellwitz, the work of art itself is the subject of the enterprise, and we don’t need to know its sources in order for it to engage our attention.
On the Web
Whitney Art Works: www.whitneyartworks.com
Ken Greenleaf can be reached atken.greenleaf@gmail.com.
Related:
Water portraits, Whole in two, Out of the woodwork, More 
- Water portraits
Despite their small size, Jessica Gandolf’s paintings have always had a large-scale operatic background informing their imagery.
- Whole in two
It’s as if Bill Manning and his work are a small, coherent universe of its own that exists somewhere, and periodically others get to visit it for a while.
- Out of the woodwork
Bernard Langlais's work has spawned a cottage industry of imitators who mostly serve just to prove how much better he was at it.
- Building up
In the current show at the June Fitzpatrick Gallery at the Maine College of Art in Portland, we see two generations of 20th-century modernist painting.
- Jazz on paper
A gem of a show, two shows really, has quietly appeared at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
- Letters to the Portland editor: February 20, 2009
- No accidents
There is nothing inherently emotionally expressive about paint being loosely smooshed around on a canvas.
- The power of 'Cool'
"New York Cool" is required viewing for anyone who has an interest in contemporary American art. Comprised of nearly 80 works, the show, at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art through July 19.
- Idealist views
The path through my various responsibilities has led me to the Portland Museum several times in recent weeks, and along most of the floors. While passing through the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit of photography I was struck by thoughts about templates created by dominant illusions, and how a consistent sense of an ideal world flowed through Cameron's work.
- Growth + maturity
The Phoenix 's first 10 years in Portland roughly bracket the period during which I stopped writing about art.
- Arc printing
For more than 50 years David Driskell, in his art and his distinguished academic career, has been a creative force in the intersection of modernist art and the African diaspora.
- Less
Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, Ken Greenleaf
