HardEdgeArt

There is order and there is chaos, but to conceive of them as opposites is one of the great errors of dualistic thinking. They not only define and require each other, but order and chaos interlace in incredibly subtle ways that the human mind only begins to glimpse. 

 

Catherine Green creates geometric abstractions that confirm this duality collapsing contention and open onto a view of reality in which the underlying interaction between order and chaos is laid bare. In her beautifully toned image/objects one is given a chance to see the arbitrary, the random, and the irrational function paradoxically in ways that are perfectly ordered, seemingly deliberate, sane and serene. Or more accurately these traditionally opposed qualities brilliantly merge, the seeming conflict becoming at once the seamless dynamic.

 

To place Green’s abstract paintings within the Constructivist tradition, as many have done, is accurate. Her heroes are clearly Piet Mondrian, El Lizzitsky, Kasimir Malevich and Laszlo Moholy -Nagy, to name just a few of the most obvious connections. But to be worthy of this tradition requires more than imitation. Because Green’s paintings contain this something more, it would be even more accurate to include her in a category with artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Ryman, Brice Marden, Robert Mangold, Bridget Riley and New Mexico’s own, Frederick Hammersley, and to call that category something like Neo-Constructivism. Green’s work is that good. 

 

So what is this “something more” that goes beyond mere mimesis to actually update or advance the Constructivist tradition of geometric abstraction? I propose here that this “something more” is that these paintings operate within the traditional dimensions of Constructivism/Suprematism but manage to also perform as metaphysical allegories in a way that expands, or at least makes more explicit and palpable the parameters of the tradition. This is no small feat, as it actually represents a kind of mapping or bringing into visibility (concrete reality) spiritual territories that have remained heretofore invisible. 

 

You scratch your head and wonder, how exactly does a painting work as a metaphysical allegory? What does this term mean? I’ll try to explain. One premise of Modernism is the assertion of the flatness of the picture plane that begins in earnest with Manet. Geometric Abstraction derives from a hardcore stance vis a vis this Modernist directive. While Mondrian believed that his “asymmetrical harmonies” would bring about a new Utopia, there is nothing explicit in their insistence upon flatness to make this clear to a viewer. Instead they read as a rigorous order linked to International-style Modernist architecture in a way that at worst constitutes a fascistic denial of pleasure. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mondrian, but just as he exempted his floral watercolors and love of dancing from his “serious paintings” it is hardly inaccurate to interpret them as deliberately lacking a less orderly aspect. In a real sense, his loyalty to the flatness of the picture plane renders the more chaotic or organic aspects of life largely inoperable in his paintings and a similar critique might be made of much of Modernist Formalism, from a Post-Modern perspective. 

 

The same critique cannot be registered against Catherine Green. In her remarkable works, the flatness of the picture plane is twofold. On the on hand it is a fact, demonstrated by evenly applied textures and colors and on the other hand it is also the means by which her paintings contain spatial illusion. This is the sense in which her work is meta-physical allegory. Her rigorous insistence upon flatness is both empirical (actual) and metaphorical (referential.) Her project is more open-ended than Mondrian’s or Malevich’s in this inclusion of metaphor, not in the traditional sense of illusion, but in the sense of abstract representation of possible spaces. 

 

These paintings are allegorical in the sense of presenting a totalized, theoretical, metaphorical version of the real. Or to put it the other way around, they acknowledge, in a way that other abstract geometers haven’t, that any idea of “reality” is always simply metaphoric. Her color and texture choices are extremely pleasurable and instinctive rather than rational and in this sense represent the arbitrary or chaotic, while the flatness and solidity or her unique compositions stand as metaphors for order. As a colorist she is unsurpassed, both in the realm of bright chromatics and in the vast plains of subtle neutrality. Of course this is all rather dull and academic when put into print, at least in comparison with the actual viewing experience before the paintings. As is often the case with great art, there is a visceral musicality here that makes prose pale.  

 

Put simply, Green’s paintings contain every bit as much rigor as the works of her influential predecessors, yet far less certainty. This alone might stand as the definition of great Post-Modernism. Her rigor is derived, no doubt, from her long apprentice-ship in Asian ceramics and sculptural traditions and an intimate acquaintance with Japanese aesthetics through her many years spent in that country. The lack of certainty is utterly au courant, and opens her work to amazingly rich possibilities of texture, space and color. When these interact with her traditional drive towards perfection, balance, and harmony her paintings achieve a depth and breadth of emotion that is highly unusual.  

 

Among the less obvious comparisons might be Giorgio Di Chirico, the proto-surrealist who referred to his own work as metaphysical. Or also Morandi. Their best works are capable of transmitting moods and mysterious emotional states in ways that defy explication. Green’s artworks work in much the same subtle ways. What strikes me most about her work is an extremely rare combination of absolute freedom and unrelenting perfection.

 

 

Jon Carver

Art critic and artist

February 2009

excerpted in art ltd. review, Nov 2009

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Looking, we may not see what Catherine Green saw. We who look daringly for awhile will recognize her honoring the shapes that enliven her shifting planes.

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I have, at moments, thought of Cathy as a juggler offering exacting performances in a canvas theater. Floating rectangles, fragments and ghosts of arcs and circle parts that are measured for their rightness and their ability to pull and repel with the talent of magnets. Wielding their time on stage, sharp flashes of white and yellow lightning illuminate and dramatize themselves while gratifying their audience.

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I look at a silvery gray painting that seems to speak, "I am a platinum fog, I am a day, look through me if you are able." Perhaps I can not see quite that deeply but I remain thankful to Catherine Green's challenging invitations to ponder her thoughtful and very mirable paintings.

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William Scharf

Abstract Expressionist Painter

Instructor, Art Students League

February 2005

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