The title of the current exhibition of Judith Linhares at the Ppow gallery, The river moves, the nestle must flyconsists of the 12th stanza of the poem by Wallace Stevens “thirteen ways to watch a merle” (1917). Together, the two short sentences imply, on the one hand, what we observe and, on the other hand, what we assume and imagine: “The river moves. The merle must fly. “
The paintings of Linhares, comprising only a few elements still in the endless permutations of the painting and the marks that constitute them, could first seem an easy reading. The apparent speed of renderings in the 17 fabrics (all 2023-24) is misleading. Their images live mainly on or just behind the front plan and are perfectly lucid. But they are built in a myriad of constellations of invoice – the full and safe blows which delimit an image even as they dismantle it in colored facets; The radiant diagonals that make the childish scenes shine with a slight high of opacity; Painting posed to the test even when it represents translussity. A tight compression of flowers in the center of real estate lives gives way to a riot of patterns which opens the compositions, propelling them forward, landing directly on the nervous system. In “Freya's Flowers”, multicolored orbs of a tablecloth are falling towards us like a shift in visual rock like the pile of flowers and carefully striped wallpaper is stuck. Dead nature is anything but.
Linhares' accounts present both fantasy and threat. The two largest paintings (each about 67 inches wide) convey work stories. In “Housekeeping”, an Odalisque is registered on a padded blanket, rejected head and feet pressed towards a roaring fire. Rendered in blue lines, their faces an inverted skull and in the shape of a mask with gaping black characteristics, the figure is a deadly presence which makes fire futile. Behind, four small women in the shape of a goblin connect their hands, a broom, in a disturbing way. They came out of a small house on one side. The warm colors that compose them seem to absorb the rays of a huge sun, illuminated windows and a golden field of harvest, while a rocky orb hovers in the sky. In “Clearing”, a woman cuts the wood while a second is nearby on the cut logs, an empty bucket fallen from her hand. This scowling slabler is mainly purple, while the worker is orange: the freshness and heat installed as oppositions. Everything takes place in the entirely manufactured nature of chroma and pattern – fabric and sky grounds with patterns of fighting hikes which cascade as theatrical decorations.
One is hard in a hurry to solve the puzzles posed. Why does the blue lady rock a rabbit? Is the queen of heart addressed in a letter? Is a genius about to emanate from a lit lamp, its folding rays the surrounding air, or is it installed safely like the sketch of a man in a dress hanging on the wall nearby? The works evoke the colorful interiors of Matisse and Bonnard. An image of a lion threatening a pair of embracing lovers recalls Rousseau and Brancusi. The return to modernism is entirely welcome, as is the slowness of the research required by Linhares, at the top of its capacities.
Judith Linhares: the Bouge river, the merle must fly Continue to the Ppow Gallery (392 Broadway, Tribeca, Manhattan) until April 19. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
