May Stevens at Mary Ryan

In continuing her exploration of landscape begun over a decade ago, May Stevens here created an environment in which water scenes became sites of memory as well as representations of place. The centerpiece of her exhibition, which included paintings on paper and on large, unstretched canvases, was ashes rock snow water (2006), a Whistlerian nocturne writ large. In this ethereal allover abstraction accented with fragments of amber and mica, a monumental close-up of a swirling river is rendered in iridescent blue and purple and overlaid with wordless abstract handwriting in silver metallic ink. This shimmering, phosphorescent surface provides a luminous and tangible counterpoint to the painting's darkness and apparent depth. Stevens painted softly gesturing hands at its right and left edges, which seem to bridge worldly and otherworldly concerns. The hands inevitably evoke Last Judgment symbolism, although their placement reverses tradition: two generous, upward-facing hands that seem to be tossing ashes into the water are located at the right, and a single downturned hand is positioned at the left.

Stevens adopted shifting perspectives suggesting psychological dimensions: extreme close-up, distant scenic detachment and a stance poised in between, as if on a shoreline. Martha's Vineyard, MA (2007), a picturesque view of cliffs and a sandy shore, portrays the pulling of the tide against a prominent rock, a distant view of turbulent waters similar to those depicted in ashes rock snow water, which faced it in the gallery. Stevens renders a serene pool and floating plant life in Charles River, Boston, MA (2007) using a realist style reminiscent of Monet: patterns of surface and light contrast with a darker plumbing of what lies below.

Three paintings on paper, Earth, Splash and Tide (all 2007), expanded the water image into pure abstraction--color gradations offset with gold or by textures that seem cumulatively to enhance a sense of proximity to the viewer. The varied modernist traditions Stevens invokes in her landscapes bring with them an elusive sense of human consciousness, although--apart from the hands--the human figure is excluded. Stevens's stirring meditation on the ebb and flow of tides generates a nuanced emotional experience, a sense of rushing in and out--a metaphor, perhaps, for the slow process of reconciling life and loss.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning