Sara Risk
The introduction of chance into art making–exemplified in the work of Marcel Duchamp and John Cage–is a method for reducing the artist’s role. More modest alternatives to the old goal of aesthetically perfect self-contained art in which every part is in its proper place and the whole is confidently endowed with some version of truth are things that have an offhand, even imperfect look at first; other artists simply appropriate images.
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Next Time explicitly refers to childhood. The words “I promise to do better next time” are written in the upper right corner, recalling dreary detention sessions. But Risk could only fit in “bett” on her top line, and so she writes in “to do better” just below it. Her amusement at the mistake–“even as I’m promising to do better I’m being frightfully human”–contributes to the tentative feel of the piece, which also arises from its ticket fragments and scraps of paper, some with letters printed on them. It looks confusing, even incongruous at first, but it’s perhaps a representation of how Risk thinks: not in rational linear phrases, she says, but more as a kind of lump sum–When I’m having a thought and saying a sentence it feels more like a ball of all kinds of possible tangents and other appendages and colors and associations.”
Much of the beauty comes from Risk’s mixing of colors: never saturated, they’re as sensuous as skin. And they seem to reach toward neighboring colors. The tans, oranges, browns, and blue grays of Angel come together to connect a jumble of circles, doodles, daubs, lines, and text fragments. Near the center is a small human figure rendered in tentative black lines (perhaps the angel); its wispiness is belied by the way nearly every other part of the picture echoes the figure. Various circles throughout the image suggest its head; irregular shapes recall its torso; stick legs connect with a bundle of lines used to tally groups of five. Risk’s world is infinitely suggestive. A figure can become almost anything, and the human presence seems eternally connected to the cosmos.
All six “From the Thicket” paintings are oil and wax on wood. From the Thicket #5 is dominated by a pale turquoise pattern, but here Bridges deals with issues common in abstract painting. A vertical red line at the left bears no resemblance to an organic form. But whereas the collision between different kinds of shapes typically makes an abstract painting seem a self-sufficient world, here the red line hovers behind the turquoise as an actual object in space. The pinkish halo that surrounds it and some red dots to the right emit a glow of sorts, almost like a living presence, suggesting a physical realm beyond the painted surface.
