The Shape of Color

8/8/2019 The Shape of Color

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The ShApe of ColorStawby Bank and Mngan Isand


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Blues and Reds Behind the Chase House, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in.


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The STraWBery BanKe SerIeSa Sm i Ssit

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The museum village o Strawbery Banke has provided me

with a wonderul, visual opportunity to explore my primary

subject, which is the way color shapes pictorial light andspace. In these paintings, color captures and denes the

privileged moments during the day when light makes

its appearance and disappearance, when shadows are at

their longest and light is most clearly directional. These

brie but special moments give expression to a world both

at rest and in transition.1

Carol Aronson-Shore

Still. Quiet. Frozen color. Sun rise or sunset; dawn or dusk;season by season. Whether the subject is a building stilllie wrapped in color or a biting, rozen landscape, Strawbery

Banke Museum is captured repeatedly and painstakingly by

Carol Aronson-Shore. As one who spends a great deal o time on the Strawbery Banke Museum

campus, I am repeatedly struck by the manner in which Aronson-Shore captures light and

mood with what appears to be such subtlety and unhurried ease. For example, Blues and Reds

Behind the Chase House has an autumnal glow skillully depicted in the window refection at

Rider-Wood House; red leaves carpet the grass under a twilight sky, and the majestic tree itsel

has a deep, almost velvety quality to it. Using classic techniques, the artist has oreshortened

the perspective by using the distant house to terminate the view, leaving the visitor constrained

on either side by visual roadblockslet to behold the light making its appearance in the long

shadows and to savor the trees majesty. (For comparison, see Chase House Red Tree with Red

Refections, gouache on paper, 2010.)

The artist skillullyalmost surreptitiouslydraws the observer into these dazzling color-drenched canvases. Upon arrival, however, Aronson-Shore has established the path she would

Chase House Red Tree with Red Refections, gouache on

paper, 7 x 7 in.


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Snow Shadows and Shrubs Behind the Sherburne House , oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in.


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Fall Color at Strawbery Banke, oil on canvas, 24 x 42 in.


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Snow Behind the Goodwin Mansion, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.


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VISIonS TranSforMeDrct pitigs b C as-S

We see in every work o gurative art the desire, objectively to represent beauty, solely throughorm and color, in mutually balanced relations, and, at the same time, an attempt to express

that which these orms, colors, and relations arouse in us.

Piet Mondrian, Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art, 1937

Ablank neutral surace. An array o pigments. These are the raw materials o any painting,whether abstract or gurative. The eternal mystery and magic, the seeming sleight ohand: how is it possible that so much can be communicated through such basic means? In the

passage above, Mondrian attempted to make a case or pure plastic art, which he believed

to be superior to gurative art because it bypassed the subjectivity o the individual artist, and

was thus more universal. Later on in the same essay, he identied an important truth: that all

nongurative art was drawn rom the surrounding reality, and that all gurative art was basedon the dynamic rhythm o inherent ormal relations.

Carol Aronson-Shores latest series o paintings o Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth provides

a wonderul example o the undamentally abstract nature o gurative art. On the one hand,

no one would mistake the works or nonreerential compositions o orm, shapes, and color.

They appear to be literal representations o actual places under specic conditions o light,

and as such they are incontrovertibly realistic, gurative paintings. Yet they are constructed

through close attention to abstract principles o design and color, which the artist manipulates

with incredible skill and deliberate control. Paradoxically, these abstract elements are the

means through which Aronson-Shore suggests a vivid, palpable, glowing, evocation othe real world.

Starting rom the details o the particular, the artist pursues her lielong passion or ndingthe visual vehicle or depicting the interrelationship o structure, color, and light. In so doing,

she breaks rom what she describes as the tyranny o the real to create tightly constructed,

nely tuned, dynamic symphonies o color. The title o the exhibit, The Shape o Color, refects

Aronson-Shores commitment to the primacy o the ormal aspects o her work. But in contrast

to Mondrians assertion that in gurative art, subject matter, i.e., the personal, gets in the way

o eective visual communication, in Aronson-Shores work the buildings o Strawbery Banke


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Harbor Boats, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.


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Beach View o Island Inn, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in.


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Approaching Manana Island, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. 2007

Beach View o Island Inn, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. 2007

Blues and Reds Behind the Chase House, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in. 2010

Chase House Red Tree with Red Refections, gouache on paper, 7 x 7 in. 2010

Dock Houses and Manana, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. 2007

Early Morning Light at the End o Horse Lane, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in. 2009

Fall Color at Strawbery Banke, oil on canvas, 24 x 42 in. 2008Fresh Snowall at the Peacock House, oil on canvas, 14 x 18 in. 2010

Groceries at Strawbery Banke, oil on canvas, 12 x 24 in. 2009

Harbor Boats, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. 2007

Late Light Panorama in Fall, oil on canvas, 24 x 42 in. 2009

Light and Shadow Rythms in Late Fall, oil on canvas, 14 x 18 in. 2010

Long Shadows on the Lowd House, gouache on paper, 6 x 11 in. 2009

Monehgan Island Red Roo Looking to Sea, gouache on paper, 6 x 6 in. 2009

Monhegan Island Village Views, gouache on paper, 6 x 6 in. 2009

Morning Tree Shadows Behind the Yeaton-Walsh House, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 in. 2010

Museum Hill and Bell, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. 2007

Museum Window at Dusk, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. 2007

Red Tree at the Chase House, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. 2009

Signs at Strawbery Banke: Pottery and The Banks Gallery, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. 2009

Snow Behind the Goodwin Mansion, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. 2010

Snow Shadows and Shrubs Behind the Sherburne House, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. 2010

Spring Colors at Strawbery Banke, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. 2010

Strawbery Banke House in Fall, gouache on paper, 5 x 6 in, 2010

Strawbery Banke Houses on Atkinson Street, oil on canvas, 14 x 18 in. 2010

Wyeth House at Dusk II, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 in. 2007

Yellow House at Strawbery Banke, oil on canvas, 14 x 18 in., 2008


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The Shape of Color