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Some
paintings are as much about the act of painting as anything else.
This is the case with Christopher Schade's "Islands" at
d berman gallery.
Schade, a former American-Statesman correspondent, toys with our idea
of an "island," or land mass surrounded by water, by visually
breaking the island apart. Painted sections of various blues with
lines indicating waves are easily detected, as are fragments of craggy
land formations. However, these shapes are arranged around voids.
Natural and mechanical imagery spills out over each 6-by-6-foot painting,
continually changing while creating unusual spatial relationships.
Look carefully, and two similar yet distinct styles emerge. Put simply,
one is more loosely painted and focuses on fewer, larger and often
distorted organic forms. The tighter style, seen in works such as
"Colossus Island," can be characterized by complex compositions
that include additional elements such as patterns and stripes.
In the latter, Schade uses too many colors to count. His brilliant
palette bursts into bits before our eyes; swaths of pink swarm up
to tangerines as icy blues cool next to mossy greens.
Schade says, "I want the world in the paintings to coma apart
and rebuild itself the way the real world does." What a wonderful
process to watch.
("Christopher Schade: Islands" continues through February
17, d berman gallery)
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