Puiatti's landscapes show power of simplicity

Aritcle appleared in The Lowell Sun ARTIST'S EYE, on November 14, 2002 and is reprinted with permission.

There's one abstract painting, "Shawangunk Mountain Homage to Rothko," among the 24 landscapes and four florals in Chelmsford artist Linda Puiatti's show at Lowell's Whistler House Museum of Art. But with Puiatti's skilled use of color and composition and her confident handling of paint, this abstraction fits right in.

True, its tone is darker, almost oppressive, as large purple and black rectangles fight with smaller shapes of scuffed up whites and grays. Yet it draws you in without the familiar fields, flowers and trees of her other paintings. It demonstrates Puiatti's skill at simplifying, which in her landscapes translates into a strong sense of place.

In "Rhinebeck Green," Puiatti paints a simple scene of a field, clusters of trees and a road. Her large, swift brush strokes give every element, even the sky, volume and weight. You can feel the energy and passion behind this work, as you can in the powerful quadriptych "Night Light."

Here, the top half of each painting is a dark sky filled with roughly painted rumbling clouds. The bottom half has land, perhaps as seen from the air, with low, red tree lines and dark green fields. They are interspersed with bodies of water, brightly lit by a hidden moon. The four oil paintings seem in constant movement; the total affect is ominous and threatening.

In "In Deep Green," Puiatti throws you down into a forest of thick, endless brush and trees, with only a glimpse of far away light. She creates layers of semi-opaque texture and shapes that imply a hidden world far beyond the painting's surface.

In her best pieces, such as "March 2002, View from the Studio," she paints with an almost fierce hand, yet the images still have a compelling ambiguity. Her less successful paintings, such as "View of the Catskills from Deinze[cq]," are beleaguered by fussy details -- little splashes of cute highlights and color. There are far fewer of these here than in her last show, a year ago at the Chelmsford Public Library.

Puiatti looks to be moving away from the landscape artists' greatest danger, superficiality, something any painter with her skills can fall into. Instead, with pieces like "Marshes at Twilight" and "In Blue," she's grown, using just a few strong strokes of color to create works of substance.

Indeed, less is more.

On display in the Whistler's Courtyard Foyer is an exhibit of pleasant photographs of flowers and regional scenes by Mary Louise McCarthy.

"Linda Puiatti: Recent Work" and "Photography by Mary Louise McCarthy," through Dec. 28, at the Whistler House Museum of Art, 243 Worthen St., Lowell. Open Wed.-Sat., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Closed Sundays and holidays.
Admission: $4, adults; $3 seniors; $2 students, free for children under 16. Phone: 978-452-7641.

By JOHN GREENWALD
Lowell Sun Correspondent

John Greenwald is a painter and freelance writer. Readers can e-mail him at johnedit@bigfoot.com.

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