“Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art,” an exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art is dominated by 30 works from the modernist artist, grouped in four themes; Flowers; Cities and Deserts; Still Lifes; The Intangible Thing; Finding the Figure. Alongside is a selection of 20 contemporary artists, showcasing “the continuing connections between our collective history and our collective present.” As the viewer, navigating through the gallery spaces, O’Keeffe’s paintings overwhelm my senses and my experiences of the familiar; like the New York skyscraper or a peach partially wrapped in white paper, For this blog entry, I want to focus on one of my favorite works in the exhibition, “Canyon Country, White and Brown Cliffs,” 1965.
“Canyon Country, White and Brown Cliffs,” 1965 Georgia O’Keeffe Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
The parting of the canyon walls draws me into the space between and beyond the massive ragged shaped forms to a swath of sky, a few blue dots at the top of the canvas indicate stars. It is in this funneled space I find complete stillness–of all the paintings I viewed, this one took my breath away; the voices of enthusiastic visitors surrounding me in the gallery quieted as I visually entered through. The canyon wall to the left is covered in layered whites; the brushstrokes sharply curve in downward sweeps; the one to the right, its curved ridges are dark brown, vertical stripes of reds and burnt oranges cascade along its surface; a pink stripe collapses into one of the orange stripes.
The inspiration behind her “Canyon Country” series is from several trips to Lake Powell, on the border between Utah and Arizona in the 1960s. The simple forms, deep colors, emphasizes not what O’Keeffe observed in the natural landscape but what rather “as it was felt.” Go and see the show!http://www.nbmaa.org
