Paul Behnke and Tremain Smith at Rosenfeld Gallery

How does an artist deal with color? This perennial question is answered by two completely different resolutions at the Rosenfeld Gallery, each of them vital and pertinent yet continents apart.

Tremain Smith employs sharply defined, geometric forms in multiple color patterns that our eyes translate into space and depth beyond our control. We're not invited into the inner recesses but are held at arm's length to admire her technical expertise with oil paints, wax and collage on panel.

Paul Behnke paints flat areas of glowing colors with his hands and/or brushes on large canvases that seem to invite you into their world— a world of no pre-determined resolution but filled with potential.

Enjoy the dichotomy and see what you can glean from the contrasts. Remember: Each artist begins with a flat, blank surface.

When Behnke first switched to non-figurative painting, he limited himself to using only black and white; form, not color, was everything. When he finally expanded to a palette of colors, his work became more open and expressive.

Welcome to his world

He begins with a large, gessoed canvas, where he draws a few lines that might suggest space to him. These lines are covered with areas of flat paint. Then Behnke creates a soft shape of color, often applied with his hands or with wide brushes. And thus begins a world you want to enter.

Often Behnke will turn the form into almost a flat panel of a single color. But look again: Lines of contrasting colors erupt from the edges. Or an almost hard-line triangle, in a contrasting color, pops up from the top or side. This too is a universe that invites you to enter.

Ariele's Table (2012) scoffs at our usual color inhibitions. Behnke juxtaposes red and orange free forms against a flat pink background, the orange made more vivid with a partial rectangle of dark blue.

Just for fun, he adds a green triangle piercing a corner of the red with a narrow band of yellow shyly emerging. It feels like taking a bath in a rainbow"“ enjoy!

Behnke's diptych, Big Narcissus (2011), includes two rectangular forms in gray tones that inject a note of solemnity. It's a more studied presentation, almost a rational life plan, encompassing thoughtful balance and depth perception. Sometimes Behnke reveals his second thoughts, indicated by the peeling and scraped pink paint exposing the under layer, as in Happy Val Lewton's Day (2011) or the precarious balance of red forms containing vital greens seen against the dense night sky in Pink Escarpment (2012).

The universe is her canvas

Tremain Smith's paintings introduce us to a new conception of space, from a thumbnail to approaching the size of the universe. We are invited to participate in it and to savor it, without limitations, gaining a perception that human beings can create interlocking shapes that are mutually interdependent and complete.

She works on birch panels, using oil, wax and collage. Smith meticulously carves the interlocking lines with an X-acto knife, then rubs oil glaze into the lines. She cuts the shapes and glues fabric (often found items) or paper directly on the panel. Triangles and rectangles create the forms that fit together as integral parts of the whole.

Once the panel is complete with geometric shapes in a perfect format, in colors that enhance each other, she applies a heavy coat of wax over the entire surface. Surprisingly, this process often creates a different aura, sometimes deepening the colors or heightening the warm tones, including the brown forms that might have a spiritual significance.

Six pieces at a time

Cohesion (2012) is an evolving work that begins as a series of triangles and, as our eyes focus, turns into three-dimensional forms. It's hard edged but with a vitality that seems to breathe. Binah (2012) represents one of the spheres of the Buddhist Tree of Life.

Smith works on six pieces at a time, each the product of intense concentration on deliberate forms and demarcations. Through premeditation and deliberation, she seeks to unite our visual, aesthetic reaction to the integral whole that comprises the universe. It's simultaneously beautiful and acutely perceptive, and consequently remarkable.

Two diametrically diverse approaches to color can enliven our vision. Here are two ways of using color. Forget about objects; just look and lose yourself in a different world.♦


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