Frances Barth. New Paintings 2011-2017

About

The exhibition presents never seen before works among which the COM paintings: a series of five paintings on panels created in 2011. Those panels are meant to be read in a cinematic way from left to right as the light changes in each work, indicating a progression of time from early morning to late in the day. Those fictive landscapes allow the viewer to participate, moving closer to an architectural/natural element traveling across vast space. The artist used a simplified diagramming/mapping, developing different perspectives and drawing with different medium incorporating digitally drawn symbols used as collages. Barth wanted to find a way to introduce a non-specific narrative to abstraction. Even though there aren't words in these abstract paintings, and they are paintings not comics, the artist wanted the shift from paint and experiential light to cartooned line, drawn with different mediums to break the sense of the experience of "place". The color in the paintings involves ideas of local, atmospheric and abstract color. Barth wanted to make natural light and abstract color act as light and location, creating a believable space and experience. With the COM panels the artist started to introduce a cinematic timing from panel to panel. The title COM refers to the word "comics/ ideas by images”. Those ideas have been present in Barth’s paintings ever since the early 1990’s.