Nataša Menart
The Compendium of Form
December 7 - December 27, 2006
Reception:
Thursday December 7, 2006 6-8 PM
Press Release
Natasa Menart's painted characters ask innocent, unanswerable questions.
“The Last Circus,” the culmination of a deeply explored theme, portrays circus performers peering at us with cocked heads and folded hands, as curious and aware of the viewer as we are of them. Menart greatly varies the scale of the scene's three figures, a mannerist move: the figures cease to read as separate entities, but as three stages of one character's maturity. The radiant young girl in the center has been both the infant clown and the grown, knowing harlequin who stands beside her. A bouquet of roses at center stage presents an image of rebirth and joy, but there is a note of melancholy behind that exuberant display; a mourning of the loss of childhood innocence, a regret for the trade of this painted utopia for a world far more complex.
Menart's other themes offer a similar softness of color and interplay of line and form as seen in the circus. “Celesta Fisch” showcases a gloriously hideous sea creature, removed from its element and placed before us on display. “Dva Ocesa,” a portrait, draws from Matisse's “The Green Line” and delicately details a striking, slender-necked figure with solid volumes of color, boldly juxtaposed against the dark lines of the accents and background.
Taken as a whole, these works fully realize the emotive capabilities of figure and expression and present a unique artistic point of view, beautifully illustrated. Natasa Menart, a chemical engineer by trade, lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Invitation to the exhibition
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View the catalog page
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Artists in this exhibition
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