A contemporary artist shows one way forward

By BRITTA KONAU | April 18, 2012

Vance's work is about painting and nothing else in a new iteration of art for art's sake that, while deeply informed by what came before it, does not look back. Her canvases collapse many distinctions ingrained in art-historical discourse and occupy a middle ground where paint, space, and light become the only subjects outside of any modern or post-modern conceptual framework. Hers is not painting pure and simple, but knowing and complicated. In their unmitigated aliveness and intense complexity these paintings are resolved but far from static — their forms are at rest yet never leave you be.

Britta Konau can be reached at curatorbk@gmail.com.

WORKS BY LESLEY VANCE | through July 1 | at Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 245 Maine St, Brunswick | 207.725.3275 | bowdoin.edu/art-museum

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