CarolPylant2024CatalogueFNCOMPRESSPRICE - Flipbook - Page 5
expectations embodies the balancing
players? A heron steps through the
frontal cultural spaces and the natural
act aspect of Pylant’s art.
background water in La Scomparsa
vistas seen through her windows,
[The Disappearance], 2022 (page 11),
arches, and doors. In previous works,
In all but one of the “Equipoise” works,
but the bird is too far away to have a
the artist has replaced the vistas of
the spatial illusion is of a stage opening
speaking part. There’s more of a role for
Spain or Italy with glimpses of the
out toward the picture plane. With
the standing dogs in Sombras de Caldes
forests and glades of North Carolina,
varying degrees of theatricality, Pylant
[Shadows of Caldes], 2024 (page 7), and
where she lived for a number of years.
offers the viewer the chance to enter into
Ballerina of Time, 2020 (pages 20-21).
This environmental uncanniness
the scene. The emphatically stage-like
These are warren hounds, perhaps
disturbs our confidence that the
arcade of Encore, 2022 (page 23),
of the Podenco Andaluz breed, and
settings she has painted are in our
seems to open onto a lake in the
both look over their shoulder toward
world. There is only a single artwork
background. The scene’s three archways
us. Indeed, upon further scrutiny, it’s
in “Equipoise” that offers an oblique
are centered, compositionally. That is, the
the same dog in both paintings. That
recessional space. Por Otra Manera
left and right arches are cropped equally
posture, then, must mean the same
[For Another Way], 2024 (page 27), is
by the sides of the painting. White
thing, of a companion waiting for us to
a smallish oil on linen showing a sun-
draperies occupy much of the center
join them. Perhaps, though, these dogs
dappled lane that runs along a stucco
archway, but just the bundled top of the
are beseeching us to acts of rescue,
on stone wall. At the picture’s center
arch on the right. The left has no curtain,
since fires blaze in the backgrounds of
is a rustic gate, but the path continues
nor a mechanism to hang one. The
both paintings. Flames and smoke fill
past it, curving out of the scene to
vegetation across that body of painted
the sky beyond the bars of the metal
the left. Here also, unlike the rest of
water seems to have been gardened, at
balcony in Sombras de Caldes, and the
Pylant’s suite, is a landscape we believe
least as far as what we see to the left and
middle portal of the back courtyard
is truly there, seen above the wall and
right. The drapes of the middle archway
wall in Ballerina of Time opens onto
through the space between egress and
cover the farther shore, so all we see is
a landscape of smoldering embers.
doorframe. The question that remains
a strip of rippling water that reflects the
The winged figure with horns, in the
for us is whether to imagine opening
sky. The immanence here, of a setting
entablature above that portal, is a
that gate or continuing along the path,
where something is about to happen,
clue, perhaps, that this is smoke of
exiting stage left.
is in part a function of the proscenium
sinister origin.
illusion that Pylant favors in these works.
The many references to stagecraft in
To paraphrase Shakespeare, if “the
Pylant’s architecture almost obscure
Buzz Spector is an artist, writer, and art
play’s the thing,” then where are its
the subtle discrepancy between her
editor of december magazine.
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