Lee Hall 2016

Celebration

Lee Hall has long been lauded for her talent as an abstract landscape painter. Scholars, critics and viewers alike have taken note of her use of color and the mystical reverence for nature she achieves with it, drawing parallels between her interpretations of the physical world and Rothko’s nonrepresentational color fields. While this is a helpful framework through which to view Hall’s work, perhaps one might reimagine a ripe, new possibility within it. What if we considered Hall as a painter of portraits? After all, the power of her work derives from her deft ability to capture the life force emitted from a given place in a given time. Her canvases serve as microscopes under which to see the spirit of what hums just beneath the surface of a field or rock formation. Her planes of color are fortified with solid, vibrant color, washed with soft-hewn textures, or confidently proclaimed in a single brushstroke, and they butt against and push off one another in a robustly dynamic way. The earth is alive, they declare, and this life is both confounding and a cause for celebration. Organic and geometric lines in Hadley Autumn Fields (2015) and Summer Horizon Beach (2012) converge to construct topographical views of each locale. These lines, which read as rivers, roads or natural boundaries, enable us to concretely identify these pieces as landscapes. However, the planes of color that lie between these lines do a great deal to suggest the spirit and feeling of the places. In Hadley Autumn Fields , hints of red peek through rich,

gold expanses to communicate warmth, complexity and the abundance of fall’s harvest, while bright green and yellow hues burst through more softly toned sections in Summer Horizon Beach to convey the spectral mystery and longed-for refreshment of cool breezes drifting over swells of heat on the coast in the summertime. Paintings such as Puglia: Sun Façade I (2015) and Puglia: Sun Façade II (2015) are more ambiguous in subject, but no less atmospheric. In these, strokes of green, red, orange and brown break up and punctuate stretches of yellowand white. The effect is less topographical and more indicative of a magnified look at a weathered, sun-drenched surface. Whether it is walls or rocks that are represented in these pieces is immaterial, because more meaningful statements of wisdom, peace and contentment are expressed through Hall’s delicate yet painterly application of her chosen media. When we contrast these sentiments with this pair’s companion, Puglia Façade Dusk (2015), a piece which reveals the strength, solidity and permanence of the very same subject through a shift in palette to deep purples, blues, turquoises and more saturated yellow, we are granted even deeper insight into this place. When viewing Lee Hall’s work, one might pause at each piece and allow it to divulge its unspoken messages. Lee Hall is certainly a brilliant abstract landscape painter, but we should not overlook the life, depth and character that lie at the core of her work and make it truly sing.

Lauren Piemont