Peter Bill is obsessed with color
I missed the opening for Peter Bill's "Color
Obsession" at Traders of Babylon Art Gallery last Friday night, but not
for want of trying. I just hadn't expected to find a gallery behind a jewelry
store. Standing in front of the window an hour before the scheduled event, I
could find so indication there was a show inside. Two days later, in daylight,
I saw the foot-square cardboard sign taped up on the glass of a closed doorway
next door, a nonchalant comment saying people should use the jewelry store
doorway. Beneath it was the geometric swirl of purple and blue that the galley
had been using to advertize the show. Inside, an 8 by 12 inch version was on
sale, framed and unframed with the title "Two, too."
The jewelry store
door opened with an electronic buzz as the gallery attendants combined jewelry
business with their art display, leading me into the back room where vivid
colors blazed from the walls like strobe lights.
Friday night's
opening was a success, they said, considering the weather and the World Trade
Center disaster in New York. They estimated as many as 70 people had come to
meet Peter Bill, sample wine, snacks and the startling array of art work. The
galley even sold a painting the first night.
While Bill called his
style a "technically precise geometric" more goes on inside them.
Even saying he creates a sense of balance and cohesion, doesn't quite describe
the result. Central themes leaped from each painting, jolting the viewer with
certain odd twists. In one painting, he used a organic shape to emphasize the
hard lines of what might be called a jigsaw puzzle effect. Only here, the lines
are straight, with sharp edges and clearly defined boundaries. In another
piece, he paints changing blue in chunks of varying shades that lay side by
side and create an impressionist solid at a distance.
His work struck me
because it lacked the normal inaccessibility of tradition geometrical painting.
Somehow in all these shapes and shades and angles, he has managed to create
atmosphere-- each work bearing a mood or sense of space. It is jarring and
challenging, and still attractive.
Nor has Bill stuck to
the rigid basic color structures that make most geometrical paintings
uninspiring. Each piece revels in its own color theme. In one piece, Bill used
earth browns and tans for an American Indian effect. In others, he plays off
1960s psychedelic, even using overall structures like in "Peace
Sign." While the phrase "New Age" brings up bad connotations
with some people, here it is relevant and refreshing, as he dances around their
themes without committing himself to them.
Bill, a British
painter, currently lives in Weehawken, and has exhibited in England and the
U.S. In 1992, he put on a one-man show at Cooper Gallery in Jersey City, and
more recently appeared in "Love & Chaos" at the Arts Center on
first, in the "Catholicism" exhibition sponsored by the Progressive
Culture Works, and in "America" at the Williams Center in Rutherford.
"Color
Obsession" will run until March 15 at Traders of Babylon Art Gallery from
11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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