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Deborah Stern at Blue Mountain
by Robert Sievert
Deborah Stern: Untitled (109"x29")
Deborah Stern: Untitled (109"x29")
The Blue Mountain Gallery was transformed by the paintings of Deborah Stern during the month of October. The paintings, always the same format, consisted of two unstretched panels of canvas that hung floor to ceiling, each 108 x 29 inches. Painted with a variety of inks and paints they described related horizontal spaces that were both formalized and expansive.
The work had a definite architectural impact on the viewer, creating a feeling of a highly formalized space. She accomplished this with intriguing images that drew you into a world of stairways and passages punctured by ragged random forms. I enjoyed the artist's sense of creating the image with her brush and her brusque no-nonsense of color. The paintings were bright and lucid.
One viewer standing next to me at Sterns opening commented: "It makes me feel like I'm in a cathedral!" an accurate description of this work. The paintings were a threshold into a larger world yet uncharted but intriguing and awe-inspiring.
