Carol Stewart’s still-life paintings offer a riot of colors and friendly objects including vases, glassware, fruits, flowers and textiles – all assembled as if on a theatrical stage.
By Nancy Gilson, Columbus Dispatch
Carol Stewart’s still-life paintings offer a riot of colors and friendly objects including vases, glassware, fruits, flowers and textiles — all assembled as if on a theatrical stage.
“Tablescapes,” echoing concepts found in landscape paintings, is the ideal title of her exhibit at the Ohio State University Faculty Club.
Some 20 oil paintings are presented in the exhibit by the Bexley artist, who is represented by Hammond Harkins Galleries and maintains a studio at the Milo Arts center.
“My studio has a southern exposure, so there’s lots of light,” Stewart said. “I’m interested in color and light and light falling on objects.”
Stewart, a native of Ontario, Canada, moved several years ago from St. Louis to central Ohio with her husband, Paul Goodfellow, a researcher at OSU’s James Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their travels together provide fodder for some of Stewart’s paintings. Textiles from India, for example, are found along with clear glass vases in “Patterns from India,” and Chinese lanterns from San Francisco abound in “Paper Lanterns I.”
Stewart seems fascinated by common but lovely everyday items. She often paints flowers that she has grown outside her studio, as in “Hellebores.”
“Late Afternoon February,” one of her most recent works, focuses on items she unpacked from boxes: pitchers, vases, a salt shaker, dolls, toys and more which, together, acquire a feeling of abstraction because of their dense concentration.
Two works pay tribute to one of her own favorite painters, the deceased Richard Diebenkorn, an abstract expressionist and member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Stewart includes references to his paintings in “Still Life with Diebenkorn” and “Still Life with Diebenkorn and Clementine.”
One of the most beautiful works is “Three Green Pitchers,” a study of pitchers, cups, bowls, lemons and boxes artfully assembled on a table and painted in vivid shades of green, rose and blue.
Stewart’s paintings are exceptionally pleasant to look at, but they are more than pretty. Her composition is careful and imaginative. And her sophistication with color and light might look effortless but is deceptively skillful.