Monica Goldsmith explores notions of time and consumption in her "Subdivisions" and "Abacus" series.
The pale palette of the "Abacus" series hints at water, sand and drought through the artist's use of gray-blue and light tan. These are accentuated with a beryl green line that appears randomly in each painting. The green line represents a green ray, a refraction of light that separates solar images by color at just the right instant (near sunrise or sunset). More than an optical phenomenon, a green ray occurs when the red image has set, the yellow image is absorbed, the blue image is scattered away and the only visible color is green.
Water is more clearly alluded to in the "Subdivisions" series with its brighter palette of blues and greens and titles like Water Table and Coastal. The work also addresses the ideas of land use planning, development, and human consumption of the environment and natural resources. The viewer does not know the full number of beads on any of the paintings, just as a society we do not know when we will have consumed too much water, land, or trees to sustain our survival. Goldsmith uses graphite, opacity and translucency to suggest the weight of consumption.
Bringing forth strands from Modernism, particularly hard edge geometric abstraction, Goldsmith explores the transitory nature of seen and unseen states, rooted in physics and time. She uses the abacus, a counting device, to explore variables while capturing a flickering moment and suspending it in stasis.
But stasis does not necessarily indicate inactivity in these works. My particular favorite is Punctuated, a painting in the dimensions of a sheet of paper, lined and marked with a colon and two periods. The words are missing. Challenging viewers to find their own words, Goldsmith provides a frame.
To view more of her work on Saatchi online click here or visit her website at http://monicagoldsmith.blogspot.com.
Leanne Goebel is an award-winning arts journalist, a 2009 NEA International Arts Journalism Fellow, a 2007 Creative Capital|Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant recipient, a member of the International Art Critics Association (AICA/USA). She has a B.A. Degree in English Literature/Creative Writing/Art from the University of Texas, San Antonio. She has been a writer and editor for 25 years.
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