AGP Between the Lines

In the past, I have experimented painting in the abstract myself, the experience felt like spreading the medium across canvas - like butter on sliced bread. Carol Forbes’ work uses this technique to create fields of colour and textures, which are than scratched at and drawn over. A collection of her works were exhibited in the corridor leading visitors to the main exhibit space of the Art Gallery of Peterborough.

I greatly enjoy Forbes’ sense for colour — the works contained murky pastels and nearly every, a creamy mustard yellow. Her wobbling lines cross through shapes which are also imperfect in straightness, and whose edges either blend or come together roughly.

These design elements appeal to me, what doesn’t is their reliance of the term intuitive. It is hard for me to fully accept that the marketing materials from this exhibition push the artist’s guiding intuition. To say the works were completed without conscious reasoning feels like a cop out, used to resist explaining the artists choices — decisions I feel add to the audience’s understanding of the work. So, was it the artist or the gallery who wanted to obscure the work and add mystery to the person who made it.

Overall, this exhibit of Forbes’ work was pleasant. I made notes for myself to look at the next time I pick up a paintbrush; ideas about colours, shapes, lines, and textures. Besides that, I left the space feeling underwhelmed, puzzled by the ambiguity of the artist’s purpose. If the technique is going to be abstract, I prefer a series of work that is conversational, Forbes’ painting were so uniform that if placed closer together, they would make a convincing single artwork.