CarolPylant2024CatalogueFNCOMPRESSPRICE - Flipbook - Page 4
CAROL PYL ANT:
STAGING
BUZZ SPECTOR
The present exhibition of Carol Pylant’s
herself, brush in hand, to make each
intertwined fish. The facial features of
paintings is given by her the title,
mark, whether broadly applied or
this grotesque pair resemble those of
“Equipoise.” The word means an equal
tenderly spotted, on the picture she is
the earlier fountain of dolphins at the
distribution, of weight (as in the old-
conjuring. Having identified the artist’s
Royal palace of Caserta in Italy. The
fashioned use of scales), composure (as
certitude, I must also assure you that
original fountain is on a narrow street in
in serenity or a dispassionate attitude),
her paintings are never right the first
Girona’s old city, but Pylant’s setting is
and equilibrium (as in a “balancing act”).
time. Pylant will go back into a picture
less a passageway than a proscenium.
In all its aspects, the title speaks both of
repeatedly, adjusting color and texture,
The fountain is flanked, to the left, by a
the artist and to her art.
light and shadow, in relation to previous
narrow arched doorway and, to the right
applications of paint. She knows this
by a wider archway. This disposition
Over the years, I have watched Pylant
will be the case, and each stepping
of elements isn’t centered in the
at work in her studio. Her working pace
back from the work is one of re-seeing
composition, though. There is visible
is of a careful deliberateness. The fine
the wholeness of her composition.
wall between the doorway and the
details that abound in her pictures
left edge of the picture, but the right
cohere through many gestures applied
The painting that shares its title with
edge seemingly crops most of the right
with fine brushes, each bearing the
the exhibit, Equipoise, 2024 (page 5),
side of the archway. Visible through
smallest amounts of pigment. This
features a basin-type wall font, modeled
the archway is a watery scene; a body
slowness is not tentative, as would
after a nineteenth century public
of still water beyond a stone walkway,
be the case for an artist proceeding
fountain Pylant photographed in
then still water, with a clump of weeds,
uncertainly toward a not-yet-conceived
Girona, Spain. On the wall above it is
and distant trees in the mist. This
realization. Rather, Pylant positions
mounted a relief sculpture of inverted
falling away of symmetries and spatial
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