Essay By Marcelle Polednik

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#777777" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>BARRY</B></div> <div> <B>MASTELLER</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="paintings.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Paintings"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">PAINTINGS</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="artist_statement.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Artist Statement"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ARTIST STATEMENT</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="biography___upcoming_exhibitions.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Biography / Upcoming Exhibitions"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">BIOGRAPHY / UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essay_by_donald_kuspit.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ESSAY BY DONALD KUSPIT"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ESSAY BY DONALD KUSPIT</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essay_by_dominique_nahas.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Essay by Dominique Nahas"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ESSAY BY DOMINIQUE NAHAS</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="essay_by_kathleen_moody.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Essay by Kathleen Moody"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ESSAY BY KATHLEEN MOODY</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ESSAY BY MARCELLE POLEDNIK</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="artworks_magazine_article.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="ArtWorks Magazine Article"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ArtWorks MAGAZINE ARTICLE 2008</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="archives.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Archives"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">ARCHIVES</B></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="biography___upcoming_exhibitions.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Biography / Upcoming Exhibitions"><B><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="Wing0a73007700c800000000.png" HEIGHT="13" WIDTH="24" ALIGN="bottom" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">CONTACT</B></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" width="100%" BGCOLOR="#777777" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Essay By Marcelle Polednik</B></div> <bR> <div> In an age when Califoria landscape painting is less an aesthetic category than a geographical designation, Barry Masteller contemplates the history of this genre and the distinctiveness of the scenery that inspired it. At first glance, Masteller's paintings evade specificities of time and place. Depicting a somewhere that is nowhere in particular, a golden, eternal hour, they are at once transcendent and elusive. This timeless quality, however, is neither universal nor indefinite. Rather, it has its roots in Masteller's sustained engagement with the particularity of his surrounding landscape and the history of its representation.</div> <bR> <div> Since the 19th century, artists have flocked to California compelled by the beauty of its natural terrain and the unique light that floods the soil. The exceptional setting inspired two diverging sensibilities, each one aimed at capturing the rare qualities of the environs. Artists such as William Keith and Joseph Breuer strove to painstakingly and faithfully record the luminous views they observed. Their contemporaries, Gottardo Piazzoni and Xavier Martinez, on the other hand, focused on light as a mercurial agent of transformation and created contemplative, abstracted compositions. </div> <bR> <div> While distinctly contemporary, Masteller's canvases betray the influence of those early pioneers who recognized California's singular fusion of land and light as fruitful ground for a more meditative approach. Piazzoni continually emphasized his concern “not with the external aspect of the landscape, but with its inward life.” The haunting glow that envelops Masteller's landscapes also hints at the mystery lurking beneath the natural world. For Barry Masteller as well as for his historical predecessors, the landscape serves as a conduit to unknown worlds and hidden dimensions.</div> <bR> <div> Tall and wiry, round and sensual, or angular, trees are the protagonists of Masteller's paintings. In The Woods series, rows of trees silhouetted against the burning sky transform the landscape into a contemplative interplay of light and form. In other series, such as Clouds over Sea, the sky itself takes center stage. The linear, horizontal bands of distant sea and clouds break over the middle ground, revealing billowing, recognizable cloud formations. Abstract color fields give way to the physical world. Rather than focusing on land, these landscapes explore what can be seen from the earthbound perspective. Though firmly grounded, the paintings soar to new heights.</div> <bR> <div> Masteller's works remind that paintings not only represent but also exist as physical landscapes. They reflect a keen understanding of paintings as three-dimensional terrains, formed by sedimented layers of pigment, binder and varnish, and built up, like geological formations, over the course of time. Rather than a weighty, physical presence, however, the works exude a lightness more befitting of a mirage. The ethereal brushstrokes that hover on the surface of these canvases enhance the insubstantial quality of the apparitions. The painstaking method with which Masteller applies the paint to canvas, the delicacy of the forms and the subtlety of the deep, sultry hues invokes the jewel-like tonalist surfaces that haunt his compositions. </div> <bR> <div> Barry Masteller's paintings offer a provocative challenge to the notion that the past brilliance of place California landscape painting has dimmed in recent decades. Light burns intensily, albeit wistfully, over the expanse of his canvases.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Marcelle Polednik</div> <div> Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Monterey Museum of Art</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Essay for the exhibition catalog:</B></div> <div> <I><B>Barry Masteller Monterey Now </B></I></div> <div> <B>Monterey Museum of Art 2006</B></div> <bR> <div> A trip to Europe in the early 1990s and an encounter with Claude Monet's monumental late cycle Water Lilies inspired Masteller to turn his attention to nature. His initial series of landscapes, Natural Occurrence, reflected Monet's influence in the abstract ripples of water and reflections of light recorded on it's surface. A second source of inspiration spurred yet another redefinition of subject and formal approach. Working as an art restorer, Masteller came into contact with the works of Monterey Peninsula tonalists such as Xavier Martinez, Gottardo Piazzoni and Arthur Mathews. The Luminous, ethereal surfaces of these paintings and the subtlety with which they interpreted the local terrain is echoed in Masteller's subsequent works, particularly the Earth and Sky and Time and Place series.</div> <bR> <div> The paintings comprising the present installation are part of Masteller's most recent endeavor. They have not previously been exhibited in California. As in the recent landscapes, Masteller uses light as a vehicle for emotional and psychological expression.</div> <bR> <div> In the Boulevard series, the enigmatic glow of twilight transforms the cityscape into a haunting, dreamlike vision. Against the backdrop of dusk, ordinary street corners are transformed into dramatic exchanges between fleeting light and shadow, presence and absence, activity and stillness. Melding together an approach traditionally reserved for celebrations of nature with a decidedly metropolitan subject, Masteller forges a new aesthetic-urban tonalism-one that reveals the mystery lurking in urban alleys and the versatility of an historical painterly style. In Boulevard 52 (2005), for example, tonal painting literally sheds light on the cityscape. Outside an art gallery opening, the golden glow of a landscape painting reminiscent of Masteller's own canvases illuminates a dark city street.</div> <bR> <div> Marcelle Polednik</div> <div> Director of Collections and Exhibitions.</div> <div> Monterey Museum of Art.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>  All text and images contained on this site copyright Barry Masteller 2008</div> <bR> <div>       <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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