11th Nov 2008
April Gornik’s Sumptuous Landscapes
April Gornik is a landscape painter who creates large, vast uninhabited vistas of calm sumptuousness poised precariously on a fleeting moment.
April Gornik offers a visual respite through painterly integrity to the daily barrage we encounter of jangling images competing for attention from signs, billboards, web sites on computer monitors and hand held devices, TV, and print media, I had been looking forward to wring about April Gornik’s work for a while, and the new solo show at Danese gives me an opportunity as it features the new and larger works. I was looking forward to writing about April Gornik’s work and her recent solo show at the Danese gallery gives me that opportunity as it features many of the new and larger works. Those of you who are acquainted with my articles are aware that I believe larger paintings are not necessarily better; sometimes it’s just like a person who has little that is meaningful to say and so shouts trying to impress. However, April Gornik’s vision is large and deeply meaningful so it is well suited to larger works,
The paintings in the show are lush as if one could paint a landscape as velvet. For me these are spiritual works, as the land or seascapes are filled with the absence of humans and their industry or objects. This develops another dichotomy, as the human element may be missing from the narrative, but the painter’s hand is always present.
Field and Storm, 2004, Oil on linen, 74″ x 95″
The landscapes are of desert, woods, meadows and sea. Presented together in the show, they remind us of ecological problems as well as those of the invading sprawl of civilization that our remaining wild or vast areas face. Perhaps, the often depicted encroaching storms and brooding skies in many of the works point to these concerns.
One of my favorite paintings by April Gornik is Storm Sea, which is pictured here. Since April Gornik maintains a home on the East End of Long Island, I suspect it is of the Atlantic Ocean at a nearby beach, which makes it seem familiar to me. The sea here is brooding, powerful, and the atmosphere is misty gray. The perspective angleof the painting is somewhat low, more the perspective of a child, or someone sitting on a chair in the sand as the waves crash and spill onto the unseen sand.
Storm Sea, 2008, Oil on linen, 75” x 101” inches
In elementary physics a string presents as either energy or pre-matter, but is neither simultaneously. April Gornik paints the waves as they spend their remaining energy churning forward in random directions, pushing into one another to form peaks. The peaks look much like the small grottos in a piece of crumpled paper or wrinkled piece of crisp cloth. It is a moment of physical transformation in nature revealed in paint.
This past summer I was privileged to attend panel discussions where April Gornik was a member. April is thoughtful and passionate about art and how art can impact our lives. Her new and excellent web site is filled with many of her recent works, plus an excellent article that I also urge you to read.
April told a story that I find useful since I am an emerging artist. It seems that at openings and shows, a fan will approach her speaking enthusiastically of a specific painting and how it moves him to feel joy. A few minutes later, another equally moved fan will approach and speaking of the same painting mention how he is moved to feel a far different emotion. For April, painting is the experience of visual communication, so she has learned not to explain herself or disagree but to simply say, “Thank you!”
So April Gornik, coming back at you: thanks for the beautiful work and your passion.
Images used courtesy of April Gornik
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