January 1-30

Finding Home

Selected works by Joanne Tarlin

What is home, a place of birth and death so powerful its pull is like a spawning ground to which we must return? Or more like an eagle’s nest above all, quiet and safe? In Western culture, people used to be born and die in their homes, the same dwelling; now lives usually begin and end in a hospital or other clinical facility and in between people move multiple times. Perhaps then, home is not the physical place where we celebrate life and face the inevitable, but a place within that when we arrive there, we feel secure, loved and free. It is from this place and about “home” I paint and explore.

For several years, I believed my paintings were abstract. From examining their progression, I realized I paint in an abstract method but my work is not abstract. Abstract art has traditionally been defined as an artistic expression that does not represent the physical world; the artist interprets, purposely or intuitively, the physical world, e.g. that which is happening around her. In the tradition of expressionist abstract painters Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning, I try not to preconceive what I’m going to make, but allow my subconscious to create the art, but unlike them, I don’t shun references to the physical world. I create surreal environments but not dreamscapes in the vein of Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy and Roberto Matta with distinct buildings, figures or a sky. I convey a sense of place. Rectangles single or in groups may appear to spectators as windows or cities, ethereal spaces as sky and fluid sweeping marks as wind.

The repetitive incorporation of these elements in my compositions begged the question, what am I trying to express with them? Clearly dynamic gestures and saturated color choices personify intense emotions and conversely, from a light touch and pastel color palette an atmosphere of peace and happiness surrounds a work. But why the open doors, deep spaces and swirls of energy leading to cities in the sky? When I submit to my subconscious to draw from my well of experience and emotions, what comes up could be fury and anger about oppression and violence among warring peoples or the desperation of individuals who self-immolate. I’ll want to scream “No! It doesn’t have to be this way,” and red will sear the canvas in a violent arch. The mother and nurturer in me will want to scoop up these broken souls and whisk them away to a safe place, create a safe harbor and a serene world.

As an artist, I can do this with my imagination. The resulting paintings offer opportunities to discover and address the feelings of “home” or about not being “home” — free, secure and loved.

—

Finding Home, an exhibit of oil paintings will be on view for the month of January, 2013 at the Touch Art and Crafts Gallery, 281 Concord Avenue, Cambridge, MA.

Artist Reception: January 6 from 2-5pm

Art talk by Joanne Tarlin: January 27 from 1:30-3 pm