Review: Solos by Rebecca Cuming, Eric Anderson at Pirate

There’s a spectacular solo in the main space at Pirate: Rebecca Cuming: New Work, featuring the artist's signature monumental paintings, which come out of the landscape tradition. Cuming’s compositions are clearly views of grassy or even flower-filled fields, but she’s worked the paint so expressively that the scenes have been considerably abstracted, with...

By Michael Paglia

May 12, 2016

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There’s a spectacular solo in the main space at Pirate: Rebecca Cuming: New Work, featuring the artist's signature monumental paintings, which come out of the landscape tradition. Cuming’s compositions are clearly views of grassy or even flower-filled fields, but she’s worked the paint so expressively that the scenes have been considerably abstracted, with her often violent slashes of paint standing in for the details of the suggested vistas.
In these pieces, Cuming establishes the foreground at the bottom, with brushwork that includes suggestions of flowers; the mid ground, implying a field, unfolds above and leads our eyes to the horizon line near the top of the picture, which represents the sky. Each of the paintings has its own palette; together they not only show off Cuming’s painterly skills, but also her talent as an accomplished colorist.

In the associates’ space, Eric Anderson: Culture Shock takes on social topics via neopop paintings with fractured imagery. In addition, there’s an intriguing installation concerning domestic life that comprises bed parts and wall painting.

The shows run through Sunday, May 15 at Pirate: Contemporary Art, 3655 Navajo Street. For more information, call 303-4580-6058 or go to pirateartonline.org.

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Michael Paglia is an art historian and writer whose columns have appeared in Westword since 1995; his essays on the visual arts have also been published in national periodicals including Art News, Architecture, Art Ltd., Modernism, Art & Auction and Sculpture Magazine. He taught art history at the University of Colorado Denver.

Contact: Michael Paglia