Adrienne Kaplan
Pursuit of Happiness, continued
October 21 – November 29, 2014
Opening Reception:
Friday, October 24, 7 – 9 pm
About this exhibit:
Two years ago Adrienne Kaplan made a series of large paintings inspired by the preamble from the Declaration of Independence, especially the last four words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In the late spring of this year as the weather accommodated she started walking the path that circumnavigates the Huron River at Gallup Park, enjoying this great park with others. She decided to come to paint. After several sittings she recognized this as another location of “The Pursuit of Happiness”.
“It may sound corny”, she writes, “but here again, I had come upon a small piece of humanity at peaceful leisure. Then I remembered all sorts of connections: George Seurat’s painting Sunday on La Grande Jatte and Stephen Sondheim’s musical theater production Sunday in the Park with George, based on Seurat’s painting; paintings by Giorgione and Watteau; Manet’s painting Luncheon on the Grass; and the mid-20th century comedian, Stan Freberg’s schtick about ‘The Purfuit of Happineff’. I painted on sight and took oodles of photos with my iPhone. Later I selected the references I wanted to work from and made the two large paintings in the studio.”
“This is a terrible period of events on earth. I don’t know if it is hopeless to show conversation, peace, tranquility, even joy, but it is what I saw and have tried to tell. It’s my pastoral, my bucolic. These are of Utopia. This does exist. Small pieces of pleasure do exist. We The People enjoying company, or solitude in the out of doors.”
Upon discovering packages of 8 x 10 sized canvases while on vacation in Maine, Kaplan made the decision to paint a series of “postcard” paintings on this theme. Her method: slap on an underpainting and then using lots of acrylic pigments and medium, bring this to a point of understandable imagery.