Apples to Apples

In the 1952 book The Story of Painting For Young People, budding art enthusiasts are urged to think of abstract art in terms of 10 apples. "Suppose," the authors wrote, "we want to make a picture of our 10 apples: we shall find no two of them alike. If we leave out any of these small differences, we are already 'abstracting' a part of what we actually see. As a matter of fact, even the most realistic portrait of our 10 apples will turn out to be an abstraction of sorts, because we cannot do without leaving out something."

This is a marvelously simple way to think of abstraction. Of course, we cannot convey exactly how a thing is; the question of reconciling abstract painting with a "real" object or person, etc., becomes moot, even silly, because, like the apple allegory, the subject or inspiration becomes removed during the relaying of it. But in some cases, the accepted fact that the features of an abstract painting need not be recognizable might lead to works whose components end up not looking—or feeling—like much of anything in particular.

Canyon Road's Hunter Kirkland Contemporary hosts around a dozen artists, from sculptors in stone and wire to surrealist painters and more. It might be thought of as a mixed-bag approach designed to have a little something for everybody who passes through.

"Our goal is helping art lovers build a relationship with us and with the artists themselves, personalizing the experience of buying art so that it's congenial and interactive, never intimidating," says the gallery's website. That last word, intimidating, is loaded, but not incorrect in this context. Seeing artwork in person can indeed be alienating, even a little stressful for those of us unfamiliar with art galleries, or painting in general.

Dancing in Paradox, the upcoming show of abstract and representational work by local painter Rick Stevens at Hunter Kirkland, features works that are careful—think trim tree trunks in the golden hour—and not problematic; his abstractions, though, can be confusingly arranged and executed, and sometimes nauseatingly colorful.

Stevens is most successful when he practices restraint, letting scenes of nature shine with color, which he so clearly adores. "Wandering Into The Glade," at over 8 feet across, is automatically immersive based on scale alone. The viewer is further injected into the scene thanks to Stevens' manipulation of light. It's a shimmery, pale gold glow that originates from the top center of the canvas and radiates into the surrounding glen. Tree trunks are dark cobalt, tinged with red, in an ode to the beauty and mystery of the deep forest.

In another work, "Last Night in the Hardwoods," the viewer is deposited into a field of multi-hued tree trunks, some orange, red or chalky pale blue. Again, light is the star of the show, with a soft shaft spotlighting a just-left-of-center aspen tree so that it practically glows. "I think of nature as a continuous flow of shapes and patterns of energy that has, or more precisely is, an intelligent force," the artist explains in a recent artist statement.

"No Reference Point" is a poignant title for a painting that seems anchor-less, with smudgy, pollen-dust yellow orbs distractedly hovering around a central mass of pea-green. The spongecake-colored background is not pretty grounding; at the painting's borders, bits of encroaching, soft-edged blue clusters look far too much like mold. Stevens is thankfully more reined-in with "Just Being There," the watery blue background of which, overlaid with wavy black lines, acts as a gentle host to a central rectangle of scumbled gold. The underwater vibes of the painting's components, together with a yellow-ish rectangle, reminded me of Spongebob Squarepants; the shape's relatively well-defined corners are oddly pleasing alongside the disconcerting borderlessness of less restrained abstractions.

In "Psithurism," a title whose definition I had to Google (it means "the sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves"), splotchy, frenzied color obscures unfinished-looking trees and shrubbery beyond. Perhaps, I found myself thinking while studying this painting, Stevens' well-executed manipulation of light is crucially important to the success of his compositions; the more abstracted works seem to lose that light, which is a key, somehow, to cohesiveness—and, frankly, to beauty.

Artists like Rick Stevens are perfectly capable, probably nice, and very, very safe—which might be why his work seems designed to pacify before it's designed to stimulate. As viewers, we are left with bushels full of apples, but we don't particularly know—or care—how many or what kind there are.

Rick Stevens: Dancing in Paradox: 5 pm Friday June 22. Free. Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, 200-B Canyon Road, Santa Fe, 984-2111