Yellow Walls, Landscape

24" x 36"

oil on panel

A concern of painters and a downfall of students is the problem of white. Too much white mixed in colors can bleach out a picture, leaving the appearance pasty. It is difficult to keep the tints (white added to a color) clear and purposeful, not faded and dull. White can bring light into a picture or it can drain it. I made plenty of pasty student paintings. Then students often overcompensate by making paintings almost completely out of bright colors. This painting problem is a part of Yellow Walls, Landscape. The bright yellow interior contrasts with the very pale outside which is bathed in a cool light. If I made the blue and green darker or more saturated the effect would be lost. I think I pulled it off. The left yellow rectangle is slightly darker and greener than the right, adding a hint of dimension.

I have a feeling that sometimes people see the wavy lines in my pictures as an ineptitude, evidence of not being able to draw a straight line. Over and over people say they disposes this ability as concrete evidence of their lack of creativity. Drawing straight is something that can be learned like good handwriting and is not a reflection of an artistic mind. For the record, if my line is wobbly it is intentional. It is because I deliberately want to convey something organic or flexible, in this case something of a curtain, or if it is window moulding then it is there as a transition from the crisp yellow to the natural outside.

Ruth Miller is a painter whose work shows an excellent color sensibility. Her work is sophisticated in its relationships of color and its role in composition. Images are sensitively created embedding time in the paint. She is represented by the Lohin Geduld Gallery in New York city.

Painting as practiced by Ms. Miller is described well by art critic Peter Schjeldahl in an April 6th interview in The New Yorker Out Loud. The focus of the talk was the emotional power of painting in relation to the exhibit Master Pieces of European Painting from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection in New York City. He spoke for all painting in saying, "Paint is made of the same stuff as we are". He explained the importance of seeing art in person because paintings are made of paint while reproductions are made of ink (I will assert pixels as well). In reproductions we just get the image, what we want to see/believe. Seeing the original poses a more challenging experience. He emphasized the term "hand-made" which is often downplayed in the current trend of appropriation. Schjeldahl gives Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbaran's Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Rose, 1633, as an example.
The exhibition will be open until May 10th, 2009. Go, go, go!!!