Energetic brush strokes and a swirling mix of the abstract with figurative iterations make artist Donna Isham‘s new exhibtion, The Power of Presence, rivetingly strong and bright.
Opening this Saturday, November 8th at Walstory Gallery in Manhattan Beach, Isham’s exhibition vibrates with color and fascinates with its layers of visceral feeling. Combining a mix of new figurative and abstract works with a large-scale installation that plunges viewers into her world of color and motion-filled form, Isham’s images dance with sheer energy, light, and motion.
The exhibition’s heart is the artist’s collaborative installation, “Glass Between Us.” Isham describes the massive 84 x 64 acrylic and charcoal work as “both painting and environment…animated by sound and light.” The installation’s multi-faceted meaning is reflected by the layers that comprise its surface, a substantive and mesmerizing meditation on “human intimacy and separation, its layered surface reflecting the emotional terrain of modern communication.”
The sound portion of the piece is an original score created by Isham’s husband Mark, using ambient synthesizers and melodic instrumentation. Isham says this sound track “amplifies the tension and tenderness of the paintings’ visual rhythm, creating a sensory duet between sight and sound.”
And, to extend the experience of the installation further, viewers will see lush animated of the artwork, creating the sensation that viewer may also be a part of the art work itself, as if one had walked into an entirely new and highly cinematic world.
Along with this vibrant installation, Isham offers a wide range of abstract and figurative iterations of her art. In some works, she uses layered materials such as acrylic, graphite, paper, oil stick and wax; in others, she is working solely with acrylic on canvas. The commonality between each diverse work is a sense of motion, of lustrous and powerful energy, or in some cases, the opposite in terms of motion: the soft, held-breath sensation of tranquility and stillness.
There is an inner glow to these works, which seem to vibrate with emotion and self-contained memory. Using bright colors or inky black, Isham’s art resonates with a sense of bold expression and the movements, rituals, and passions of life itself.
Isham describes both her work and life experience as riven with the ” fragility and strength of being in relation to another.” Emotions, feelings, and the pulse of existence are all present in images that sing with light, shadow, and shifting colors as well as with a raw and delicate balance of feeling and seeing.
In “Green Block,” above, acrylic paint, collaged paper elements, and graphite merge to create an emotional history, a charteuse and rose explosion of memory, the passage of time, and what is too deeply personal to transcribe in literal terms. It is a poetic piece, one that allows the viewer to impart one’s own memories, while feeling the magic infused by Isham’s own.
The artist’s figurative work, such as her acrylic on canvas potratit “She,” often expresses the sensation of an immediate moment caught in time. The beautiful heavy-lidded figure here seems poised on the verge of recognition, about to speak or cry out, or perhaps she is temporarily unable to move, awed or surprised into stillness. The pale blue-grey that runs liquid shadows behind her and along her cheeks and neck creates an atmosphere that is charged with both sadness and grace.
Similarly, Isham’s “Flight in Black and Taupe,” a seamless blend of the abstract and figurative, also blends a feeling of staying caught in a singular moment in time with a rush of imminent motion. Working in acrylic, graphite and oil stick on canvas, Isham gives us what appears to be a woman with her back turned, dancing with, or holding onto another person with bent head and encircling arms. It is a moment both tender and fraught, with the abstract blacks and beiges and grays around her potentially the twirl of other figures in motion, or ghost-memories of them.
“Poetry in Motion” blends graphite, acrylic, and paper on panel for a layered effect throbbing with color, combining images of roses with orange sunlight, perhaps the curled tail of a cat, the square of a phone about to snap a photo, or a picture frame, waiting to hold sunlight and flowers, and preserve them for all time.
“Blue Swirl” uses similar mediums to evoke the floral, capture a haunting smile on a partially obscured female image, and offer up what appear to be bubbles floating with light and air in a cluster of inchoate beauty.
Viewers can themselves float in to Walstory Gallery this Saturday from 6-8 p.m. for The Power of Presence. Walstory is located at 919 Manhattan Avenue in Manhattan Beach, CA.
- Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist and gallery