Birds nibble, cats roam, dogs sleep, and cacti bloom in Juanita Ainsleys exuberant mixed-media paintings. Now on display in the Durango Arts Center Art Library, 20 works from a particularly rich and fruitful new direction radiate delight.
Rarely has the arts center staged an exhibition by a regional artist that carries so much intensity, verve and pure joy. Pause on the stairs before descending into the gallery and take in the color, pattern and universe of Fancy This. Its a garden of earthly delights that speaks with the voice of a mature artist who has tapped into a magical source of inspiration: childrens art.
Ainsley is a psychologist by training and a visual artist of long standing. In her brief and lucid artists statement, she
acknowledges her source of inspiration. She also notes combining disparate elements that play off one another. Every painting is a collection of many small works.
Shes not alone in her inspiration or approach. Major 20th century artists like Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky and Pablo Picasso were all captured by the freshness and spontaneity of young childrens art.
So what has Ainsley added to this modern artistic stream? A uniquely expressive vocabulary and a complex but cogent sense of composition. Ainsley combines her own childlike schemata with sophisticated imaging techniques. The result is a body of work with tremendous narrative power. Her new paintings have a story to tell in a language that few contemporary artists have understood and/or used.
At first glance, the paintings appear to be collage. Look again. The artist has combined oil stick and painting techniques with delicate and bold ink drawing plus monoprints and bits of torn paper just a touch of collage.
Structurally, Ainsley plays on a white field. She assembles blocks of color, puzzle pieces that frame or contain images of birds, animals, flowers, rocks, trees and human figures. In between and often overlaid, dots, squiggles, patches of color and text create additional patterns. Ainsley has developed an encyclopedia of graphic devices. Layer upon layer, these add up to a jubilant sense of decoration.
River Trail may have evolved out of a daily walk with a dog. But in this work, a childlike universe of color and light comes alive.
Under a canopy of flowers and a huge black-and-white flying insect, the walkers stand beside a bold riverbed of irregular blue and white shapes. Embedded letters carry the title with whimsical abandon.
Long Horse presents the most geometric array of color building blocks. A large, green cactus dominates and is surrounded by purple flowers laced with delicate text and a grid filled with smaller swatches of color. Nearby, a mysterious linear figure dances. And almost as an afterthought, a bold panel with two children riding a huge yellow horse anchors the bottom corner.
Somehow, Ainsley has tapped into deep imaginative resources and has found a style and process to bring forth wild juxtapositions.
In Long Horse, the artist folds in a Thoreau quote which speaks for her show in general: We cannot make art well but we do so with gusto, the body, the senses conspiring with the mind. We have to love what we are doing to do it with heart.
jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, artist and critic.
Celebrating Ute Culture
The Durango Arts Center opened two new exhibits Thursday night. Celebrating Ute Culture is a multimedia exhibit of artifacts, photos and everyday items from the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes culled from private collections and on loan from the tribal governments and archives.
The exhibition, which will remain on display through June 15, includes three continuously running films documenting Ute history in the Pre-American and modern West. For the next three Saturdays, the exhibit will include workshops on basket making, drum making beadwork taught by Ute tribal members.
