“Organic Poetry”
Dolan Center Gallery
Friends Academy
Locust Valley, New York
March 3rd to April 16th

“Organic Poetry” is an exhibit that features the work of two contemporary New York artists, Barbara Andrus, and Jackie Battenfield, and explores the relationship that ensues upon juxtaposing their works.

Tree limbs and tree branches, readily recognizable organic forms in both artists’ works, are transformed through each artist’s distinct creative process into highly individualized artistic expressions – a visual poetry.

Barbara Andrus starts outdoors in the woods, choosing and cutting trees or parts of trees that will eventually make it into her sculptures or installations. Back inside, working intuitively and imaginatively, she selects, weaves, and sometimes ties the wood with string -- adding limbs and branches until the sculpture or installation is done. The resulting structures, whether linear compositions sublimely suspended in translucent cheesecloth as in “No Straight Lines, Soft and White”, or woven organic masses as in “House with Curl” are visually intriguing and assume an architecture that is personal and lyrical.

Jackie Battenfield comes to her blank white canvas saturated with emotional ‘snap shots’ captured through her interaction with the everchanging landscape around her, and its direct emotional impact on her. Her painting process begins with layering translucent colors – colors which reflect a broad emotional palette, rather than a realistic one – by pouring, brushing, sweeping, and dripping the paint over the surface of the canvas (with spectacular results) as in “Forever Evening”. Her bold markings, spontaneous lines, and twisting tree limbs are intense, tactile expressions of human emotion as in “Cried For Moons”. Her works on paper, and her prints, on sensuous handmade paper, carry the same spontaneous, expressive spirit.

Doris Mukabaa Marksohn
March 5th, 2003