You Are Cordially Invited…
Martin Poole’s “Places to See”
at Kada Gallery & Frame shop
An Art Review
With an exhibition entitled “Places to See” it reads like an invitation.
As if artist Martin Poole has created 20-plus oil-on-panel travelogues he welcomes us to visit.
If only currently at Kada Gallery & Frame Shop.
“Memories color each other, blend together sometimes, and are almost always colored by our emotions,” said Poole’s in his artist’s statement. “I try to use this slightly squishy world of near truths as raw material from which to pursue larger truths, ideas that I return to regularly in my life.”
While it’s safe to say Poole’s paintings are inspired by nature, an occasional person may appear—be it a cameo—so as not to overshadow the artist’s focus upon the outdoors and its majesty.
“Hide and Seek” (see picture) portrays two distant girls in long white dresses in a forested area near their home, while “Path to Sea” illustrates a rocky coastline upon which a far-off solitary person treads.
As above, Poole’s subjects are often small and minute in detail. The viewer must search for the title’s inspiration, an almost “Where’s Waldo” contest that challenges them to observe the artworks up close and truly experience each piece.
In “Old Red” a barely discernible red tractor is in the foreground of a green field that’s dwarfed by the imagery beyond it: two separate treelines, a mountain range and a brooding gray sky.
“Lilac Sofa” appears to be an early morning or late evening vista with two lights on in a secluded wooden cabin. A distant lilac sofa is present on the porch, yet due to the painting’s 48” x 36” size, the viewer has to hunt to locate it.
“Hunter” is a naturescape that shows a barren brown land with a collapsed tree in its foreground. A brownish fog beyond it, it seems to guard a looming, snow-topped mountain in the distance.
The hunter? A creature near the bottom of the panel seems to be watching us. Yet it’s so minute it’s difficult to guess its identity. Is it a wolf? A cougar?
“First Real Snow” offers an autumn-toned landscape with brown leaves still clinging to trees, slumbering yellowish fields and another snow-covered mountain in the distance.
What makes the oil-on-panel painting stand out are the vertical brushstrokes that suggest a heavy snowfall rather than perhaps using pointillistic snowflakes that would make the image
appear immature in its presentation.
“Green Sky” is a skyscape with a modicum of beach at its foreground and a thin greenish waterway beyond. As an ominous green-gray apocalyptic sky lords above all, Poole’s artwork recalls the work of some Northern Renaissance artists who preferred painting the atmospheric conditions above a scene, rather than showcasing what was beneath it.
Finally, “Night Light” offers an evening tableau. A winter scene, it contains a snow-covered landscape with a barn and silo in the distance.
But the night’s light? Is it the moon, the stars or the solitary light shining from a window?
Or…is it all three?
Of “places to see” in Erie, visit Kada Gallery & Frame Shop before this show closes Saturday.
Places to See continues through May 11. For more information, kadagallery.com
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