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movement perfectly — especially that of the dogs. In “Yellow Sands 1,” the canines, possibly terriers, are outlined in unexpected colors, including red, blue and green. Nudes are shaded in greens and blues; apocalyptic streaks of red punctuate the darkness in “Avenger.” Color, for Brown, is in the service of mood. Barry’s use of color, by contrast, is a defining aspect of his paintings, which depict humorous moments in ordinary life. In “Woman With Her Sampler,” for example, a purple-haired woman, wearing a gray shirt and royal-blue “Avenger” by Deborah Brown
A tabletop, its contents and its base are all represented on the same vertical plane in “Seated Woman.” The effect is to leave the focus on the interaction of solid blocks of color: red table, blue background, green corner. The bold color choices and flattened pictorial space bring to mind any number of experiments, starting with Henri Matisse’s paintings from the 1910s and ’20s, yet Barry’s approach to figures is all his own. Far from Brown’s voluptuous goddesses, the angular, skinny women he depicts in this show hold their feet in impossible positions yet somehow communicate a veracity of gesture and attitude. The forager in “Scavengers” is practically wrapped around a tree in her focused determination to pluck a mushroom beside its base, one purple foot jutting into the air. The bathtub-bound figures in “Soak” and “Woman in Her Tub” cross their feet at awkward angles yet still look relaxed, their unrealistic limbs conforming to the tub’s shape. Barry tends to fill a canvas to its edges with stylized compositions whose forms echo each other. “Scallywags and Muse” depicts a water skier in a strapless red swimsuit, a baseball cap-grasping motorboat driver and a gleeful dog poised at the boat’s helm — the muse. The painting’s
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THE BENNINGTON ARTIST IS
A PRACTITIONER OF FAUX-NAÏVE ART
“Orbs of Death” by Mark Barry
pants, selects a chocolate from a box with obvious delight while the black dog at her feet raises its snout hopefully. Red walls and a window opening that’s part yellow and part green complete the colorful palette. The Bennington artist is a practitioner of faux-naïve art: He paints with the flattened perspective and childlike figuration of someone without training, but he earned a bachelor’s in fine art at Swain School of Design (now part of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth College of Visual & Performing Arts) and pursued graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University.
composition is a tightly wound spiral: The boat is being turned at speed, and the waves encircle its oval shape while the waterskier’s position parallels its long side. Three blocky white clouds punctuate a strip of pink sky, their tops as flat as the canvas’ edge. Barry’s ability to convey moments of excitement is evident in other paintings, including the humorously titled “Orbs of Death,” in which two circular sleds hurtle side by side down a snowy hill. One is airborne, the other steered by a determined sledder. A more refined style or more realistic colors could hardly make a viewer feel the same excitement, or chuckle with the same level of recognition. m Contact: lilly@sevendaysvt.com
INFO “Human Nature/Nature Human: Deborah Brown and Mark Barry,” through October 13 at Bundy Modern in Waitsfield. bundymodern.com Untitled-4 1
SEVEN DAYS JUNE 12-19, 2019
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