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April 3, 2009 – Part III:  Harrison Center for the Arts

Time was running short and I went to the Harrison Center for the Arts as my last stop in the First Friday Hop.  Here I met up with fellow Yarn Burners to play Bingo and create a square for our group project.  Then I hurried up to see the show in the gallery.

Susan Hodgin has her new work entitled “Cairns”  in the Harrison Center Gallery.  I began and completed the night with artwork that progressed through careful exploration of ideas.  Susan Hodgin’s paintings are created with oil paint and charcoal.  Sometimes the charcoal showed through layers of paint, and at other times, the charcoal was applied on top of the paint.  There are many layers in the paintings, and one can see a swirl pattern of uplifted surface that lies underneath the paint and charcoal.  The oil paint is unmixed and yet this variant of color and tone is not used to increase a three dimensional look of the painting, but rather emphasizes the graphic quality and two-dimensional nature of the painting.  Susan uses geometric shapes, but instead of the shapes appearing mechanical, they appear organic.  Most of the backgrounds, although they have color and light fading softly in and out, are somewhat flat, which counterparts nicely with the foreground.  Helium, on the other hand, is a painting that jumped out to me because the background seems more alive with light.  The background of Helium interacts more completely with the foreground “circles” of color.  It is a pleasing body of work.