Franny Golden and her new show Etudes

My pleasure today to work with artist Franny Golden putting the finishing touches on her new art show "Etudes" featuring 30 paintings from Cape Cod, France, and Turkey. "Etudes" Art Exhibit at Littgle Gorgeous Things--Provincetown Store and Art Gallery

She is also in town teaching "Putting it All Together: A Drawing Workshop" and "Color as Composition: A Painting Workshop" at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. http://www.paam.org

This is our third season representing Franny in Provincetown and I can say without reservation "I adore this woman." She is an adventurer, a thinker, a gracious host, and a driven painter who seems compelled to articulate in color and form what she is thinking and living.

The current show has some work from her time living in Turkey. She writes:

"Turkey has obviously influenced my painting and, to a certain extent, facilitated a more abstract direction. I am a walker, a transportation maven. So it was difficult to miss much -- sounds of soprano voices, smells of grilled food, untold textures, saturated colors, flowing patterns. And gold: lots of it!”

"In addition to the process, there is the repetition of form, color and gold paint. Almost certainly some forms are archetypal--probably personal statements about being a woman. (Although it is difficult to articulate such a statement, it is something I feel.) The hues, the forms, the gold are, as well, manifestations of Turkey; the sphere, the dome, the arch are clearly architectural--ubiquitous here. The sphere has also come to symbolize the abundance of profuse, volumptuous fruit, as well as the hot, relentless sun."

"Academically--intellectually--I want to take these forms and use them as color. And take these colors and use them as form. It is critical to work both of these elements at the same level, on the same picture plane; to work elements as intervals, as in music--or even in mathematics. Hopefully, then, the harmony, the motion--and the necessary tension--will work indivisibly toward an expressionistic composition."

Much of the show features work from her recent winters in France:

"It is mostly in winter that I go to France--to my village in Gascony.”

“Nearly every village has a lively weekly market where merchants begin to set-up before day light. In the southwest of France, where I have my village house, various market villages have had the same market day since the Middle Ages.”

“Certainly, I am inspired by the market place--that ancient ritual of swapping and trading and haggling and pot-latch that is the universal activity in these places. It is the socializing, the shapes and saturated hues of the fruit and vegetables and pastries and fish and fowl and game… and the artistic arrangement of these. By 1 pm, what remains are odd bits of produce and beautifully designed colorful labels on pine boxes. I often rummage these remains for pieces on which to paint.“

“My painting in France is also inspired by the sensual , flowing wrought iron works, entrenched in Medieval history, the impassioned language and the voluptuous landscape.”

“In the afternoon, I often set out on foot, or on my bicycle, wearing a vest with many pockets well stocked with art supplies and pencils. When I find inspiration, I stop and draw a scene which I can later finish in the studio with additional paints and materials.”

One wall of the gallery features works from her "Out of Context" series:

“As a portrait artist, there are a number of great paintings that I’m obsessed with-- particularly certain figures in those paintings-- I feel as if I want to crawl inside the painting and somehow hug or grab that persona--“

“--in these paintings I take a figure from a great painting out of context and work and work it until I have reached almost an abstract state-- until I’ve said what I have to say.“

These "Out of Context" portraits include "Miss Van Buren" originally painted by Thomas Eakins, The Dwarf and the Infant Princess originally seen in "Las Meninas" by Diego Velasquez, and the younger Bellelli from "The Bellelli Family" by Edgar Degas.

OK, enough... come see the show. The reception is on Friday August 3 from 7-9 PM. All welcome. For more on Franny Golden visit her website http://www.frannygolden.com or her blog at http://8rueporteneuve.blogspot.com