Galleries and Exhibits - New Works: Barbara Lee
February 8 - March 7, 2002
Opening reception: February 8, 2002, 6-9 p.m.
Gage Family Gallery
"In my studio I have one window. It faces toward the east. It is a small window pushed to the corner of my studio. This series of paintings is about the light on the sill of this window. The light changes very quickly in this space. It moves like a knife falling at about 10:30 in the morning. From direct bright sunlight it becomes a muted diffused light which, strangely, illuminates objects more strongly. Things glare less and radiate more.
My experience of painting in this space is one of change. Quickly the work can move from strength to slackness. One minute being full of spirit and light and the next being wrong and stiff. These paintings will slip away from me, and become foreign objectsimages unconnected to me, deplorable in clumsiness.
I have learned to return to the physical object and its occupying of space. This will call back the beauty. Those objects There in That space on That windowsill being stroked and filled by That light and then there is the dark wonder of the shadows on which it sits and the glory of the air behind it.
This is why I paint the light on the windowsill of my studio."
