Viridian Artists Inc Hosts Jack Bolen: The Acadia Paintings

Friday, 13 October 2006 16:21

New York City - Viridian Artists Inc is pleased to present the first solo exhibit of painter Jack Bolen at its Chelsea location.  Jack Bolen: The Acadia Paintings continues from October 17 to November 4, 2006.  There will be a reception for the artist Saturday, October 21st, 4-6 pm.  The paintings on view, based on organic rock formations, merge the real and an abstraction of the real as the shapes morph from rocky to fleshy to surreal in colors that hint at being from other worlds rather than this one.

With a sense of emotional intensity that springs from direct observation of the environment, Bolen's rock formations in part arise from much time spent on the coast of Maine's Acadia National Park.  Seeing our environments (both physical and emotional) change in subtle and often mysterious ways, the artist brings this concern to the canvas.  His creative search is one focused on rediscovering through the painting process an array of environmental phenomena and the transformation that occurs because of time's passing.

Bolen has translated these phenomena into his paintings as he merges past and present, the real and the imagined.  These are not paintings of rocks per se, but of a sense of rock that is sometimes warm and sensual to the point of becoming flesh.  Or, cold and foreboding as if the pieces with their cracks & crevices were but chards and remnants of times long gone.  With the edges of his almost real imagery drifting into pure unformed color and small rectangles added in corners and edges, it's as if the artist is making a note for future reference, a code only he understands but one which will be used to remind us of things we can't remember that have long ceased to exist.