Ivo Bouwman invites you to an exhibition
of
new and key oil and pastel works
by
VICTORIA BADEN-POWELL
Tuesday, October 30th, till November 10th, 11-17h
AT THE IVO BOUWMAN GALLERY
80 Jan van Nassaustraat, 2596 bw, the Hague, Holland
r.s.v.p to: info@ivobouwman.nl
%%wppa%%
%%album=172%%
Pointillist, Divisionist?… Chromoluminarist!
Victoria Baden-Powell has lived variously in Malaysia, the Channel Islands, Ireland, London, New York, Holland and the Scottish Borders. She received formal tuition in painting and drawing from two good artists, Francis Cook and Caroline Leeds, in Jersey, from the age of six. In 1962, she was awarded an Art Scholarship and gained entry to Benenden School in Kent. Even from an early age, Colour and its importance in Life and its influence on mood, virtual and actual, is evident in her work.
Aged 20, in New York, she made her first experimental Pointillist painting, and continued exploring all possibilities offered by this style, until overnight, in 1996, she “broke free” of the constraint of neat, uniform dots of colour and expanded into larger, irregular patches of colour, mixed on the palette, often outlined in contrasting colours to heighten their impact. These “patches” can best be compared to “tesserae” or mosaic-like shapes of vibrant colour, creating an optical illusion of pulsating energy and life on the picture plane, as the pixels appear to move autonomously, like atoms.
The strength and balance of the carefully-composed compositions is often further enhanced by the use of quasi-geometric shapes. Lines, circles and rectangles are subtly incorporated.
Such a unique and personal amplification of “Pointillism” can best be categorised under the heading of “Chromoluminarism”, embracing as it does the main tenets of both Pointillism and Divisionism under its banner. What cannot, and should not, be ignored, is the joyful, almost celebratory approach, that this artist adopts to any new work upon which she embarks. This shines forth from each and every painting or pastel!
