Art Beat

Michael Paglia's brief sketches of what's happening in the Denver art scene.

A A A Comments By Michael Paglia Thursday, Nov 30 2000

Gallery Sink, owned and operated by Mark Sink, is currently hosting a retrospective entitled Ann White: 1950-2000. Sink has a special interest in White, with whom he has had a lifelong relationship: White is Sink's mother.

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White has long been associated with "The Nine," a Denver artist group that's still active. Stylistically her work is divided between abstracts based on landscape or still life subjects, and lyrical, more representational versions of the same thing. The dozens of paintings and watercolors in the show are only "the tip of the iceberg," says architect Ed White, Ann's husband. "She's done so many more."

Sink has arranged the show in roughly chronological order. The front gallery is where the oldest paintings can be found, including "Taos" from the 1950s (above). The paintings in this section are among the most abstract, and they reveal the influence of a variety of modern artists, including Picasso, Matisse and Richard Diebenkorn. These early paintings are signed 'Sink,' as opposed to 'White'; at the time White was married to Mark Sink's father, Chuck.

Another group of interesting paintings are the color field landscapes from the 1980s depicting the Southwest; these have been hung on the west wall of the second room. Some of White's most recent paintings are conventionalized still life scenes displayed in the last room. A typical subject of this group is a pot of flowers on a table. Sink points out that these newest still life paintings connect to her earliest work. In both periods she addressed the same subjects.

Sink would like to reinvigorate his mother's long career with this show, and he plans to present her work in subsequent exhibits at the gallery. But hurry, the show is set to close on December 17.