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Recent Paintings ~ Oil and Watercolors by Kate Knapp Bold color, expansive brush strokes, and new angles of vision characterize the new oils and watercolors in Kate Knapp’s exhibit. (continued below images) Click on images for a larger view
Most of the pieces in this show were painted in the fall of 2008, a time when the island is quieter, the light changes, and fresh angles and aspects of buildings, field, sea, and sky are in relief. There is nothing quiet about these paintings. They are alive with the artist’s intense relationship with her subjects. “Behind the Surf Hotel” is a complex study of porch rails, gables, and dormer windows seen from the path leading to the beach. The usual grey shingles are washed in soft tones of pink from the late afternoon light, and the rusty orange lines of the fire escape cut diagonally across from the upper right third story to the center of the first floor back porch. Another oil,“Clothesline,” is a study of light and shade, with grey shadows cast by a house on the left of the canvas while in the center foreground a yellow towel on a clothesline snaps in the wind and the sun falls across a weathered chair on the lawn with a large clear blue sky filling the rest of the scene. The Narragansett Inn, a favorite subject of Knapp’s, figures in several works. In one, a red bicycle in the center foreground is set against the white building, with a large blue sky forming the background for the various angles of roof lines and two brick red chimneys. In another watercolor, “Narragansett Clothesline,” a line strung with white sheets runs from an outbuilding on the left across the center of the canvas to the main building on the right.The flapping sheets catch the light, which casts pink and grey shadows on the main building and the annex. Some works bring us eye-to-eye with close studies of flowers, berries, and gorse. In one, a sandy path in the right foreground winds toward the beach, with white crests of waves and a ferry in the background, but the real interest is in the deep red and orange rose hips set against the verdant foliage of rugosa roses on the dunes near the North Point. “Snakehole Breakers” takes us through a foreground dense with the tangled foliage of blackberries, bayberry, and yellow flashes of goldenrod down a sandy path to the rolling foam of the surf playing across deep purple water merging into a turquoise Also in the show are a large still life of peonies and allium in tones of pink, cream, purple, and blue, views of the Spring House from off-beat angles, the Sullivan House with dinghies on the beach off of Dead Eyes, and an intriguing, slightly cock-eyed view of a ferry passing in the distance as seen from the deck of another ferry with the white iron strut work framing the foreground of the painting.
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