Elizabeth Jobim | Endless Lines
Elizabeth Jobim | Endless Lines
Elizabeth Jobim | Endless Lines
Elizabeth Jobim | Endless Lines
Elizabeth Jobim
From Sep 19 to Nov 01 2008
It goes without saying that abstraction was prominent in 20th-century art. From early modern movements like De Stijl and Suprematism to Abstract Expressionism, artists experimented with the possibilities inherent in nonrepresentational imagery.
Elizabeth Jobim's Endless Lines is a single, site-specific installation. The work consists of two dozen massive painted canvases placed side by side along the walls of the main gallery. Painted blue lines and geometric forms blend from one canvas to the next, creating a kind of architectural environment that envelops the viewer.
Jobim is influenced by music ? partly, no doubt, because she is the daughter of the Bossa Nova musician Antonio Carlos Jobim. It is clearly visible in her work here, with her alternating combinations of thick and thin lines and volumetric geometric forms, frequently resembling musical notes arranged on a page.
The artist uses ultramarine blue paint applied with rollers to the canvas. Up close the pictures look unevenly painted, with spots and stains and shifting levels of luminosity. But stand back and the varying surface textures and saturation of the paint create a sense of undulating rhythm; the lines begin to vibrate.
It is always tempting to look for representational imagery in abstract art. Jobim's paintings can remind you not just of music scores, but also of an urban skyline or even the outline of industrial machinery. Yet, fundamentally, this installation is all about relationships of space, line and form. It is classic geometric abstraction.
Detractors often say that abstraction is maddeningly oblique. On a literal level, they are right, for most abstract art doesn't mean or say anything in particular. But this painting reminds us there are other ways in which abstraction can be appreciated. It is not so much about thinking, as looking and feeling.