GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Students in the Studio Seniors’ Art Class, a Glen Ridge Recreation Department activity meeting Tuesday mornings at the Ridgewood Avenue train station, recently exhibited their paintings at Crane’s Mill in West Caldwell. The works of five students and their instructor, Khrystyna Khristianova — 55 pieces in all — were shown. Reviews of selected works by three of the student artists, Brenda Encarnacion, Carol Honaman and Helen Blum, were recently published in this newspaper. Today, we will look at some works by student artists Pat Lynch, Lynne Palmer and Khristianova.
What was fascinating about two of Lynch’s paintings was the way in which the artist directs the viewer’s eye. In “Path to Nowhere,” it is directed to the left, following a line of high grasses trimmed in yellow ochre. It moves further left, settling on a yellow patch. What is this patch? Flowers? Sunshine on an open field? It is interesting that Lynch establishes strong, definite forms and then leads the eye to the spot where form is questioned. This mysterious area may be the destination for the path to nowhere in the lower left of the painting. That Lynch has the eye fly over a path to nowhere is nicely subversive.
Lynch is at it again in “Cozy Nest After Natasha Berg.” Here we have a painting chock-full of scenery. But where the eye is taken is to a small vacant patch that could be a precipice beside the snow-bound cabin. There is great fun when a painting displays a spectacular panorama and brings the viewer to the edge of a cliff for a better look.
In the paintings of Lynne Palmer, a Crane’s Mill resident and the art gallery coordinator who made it possible for her classmates to exhibit here, one sees a painterly quality that has taken time to achieve. In her painting titled “Irv,” there are areas of the subject’s head, especially the ear and the nose, that are rendered nicely, without any evident shortcomings due to painting from a photograph. The delicacy of this painting, including the placement of the head on the canvas, cannot be appreciated in the accompanying photograph. It was just a little lower in the original; the placement in the painting gives it charm and energy. What Palmer has done for “Irv,” which, by the way, was sold, can be seen more clearly in the “Vermont Farmhouse” detail. There, on the shaded side of the house, one can see hints of warm reflected light. Also appreciated was how the trees were handled, with bold sinews disappearing into lushness.
Khristianova exhibited 20 paintings, some painted photo-realistically, others more sensual. It is hard to imagine the amount of work that went into her “Owl,” while in her sensitive “Elizabeth After John Singer Sargent,” she attaches the head to the torso beautifully, keeping the shadows carefully subdued and giving the woman shoulders you can almost feel. A delicate chain around the subject’s neck is both gentle and tactile, two qualities also found in “Garden in a Teapot,” although here one might wish for a teapot with a little more definition, to capture its elegance and purpose.
For more information about the Studio Seniors’ Art Class, call the Glen Ridge Recreation Department at 973-748-2429.
Photos by Daniel Jackovino
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