Erica Prud'homme: Portraits at Blue Mountain Gallery

by Robert Sievert

The directness and painting savvy of Erica Prud'homme is truly apparent in the new series of portraits she is exhibiting at the Blue Mountain Gallery in December of 2007. She has shown an amazing variety of work in her last exhibits (this is her sixth show at BMG). There was the allegorical series in which landscape was transformed into human anatomy (See Artezine 7, "Erica Child Prud'homme: Bodyscapes -- A recent exhibition at the Blue Mountain Gallery".) Her artistry transformed images of rolling hills and islands into human form. Next she gave us wonderful paintings of light sweeping across the surface of ponds and streams.

Now she has turned her attention to portraiture. She said: "The portraits are a diversion from my usual subject, the natural world. But I was blown away during a trip to Spain two years ago by seeing some of wonderful, rather formal, Renaissance portraits in various Madrid museums. I think of my portraits as simply describing a different terrain: cheekbones and brows, sunlight on hair, smiles and introspection."

More then portraits this work is a strong show of a painting tour d' force. Her portrait Julia radiates a beautiful soft light that is a combination of the "fairness" (soft red blonde hair and pale almost translucent skin) and the pale green atmosphere she is painted in with an incredibly sensitive brush. Another painting has the head of a young man in a sea of yellow light. The light is brilliant and overtakes the face setting the eyes and shadows into deep recess.

Of great interest to me were three small studies of hands and feet. One was a neatly folded pair of hands seen against a velvety blackness. In another a pair of feet seem to be twisting and turning out of the darkness. My favorite was an upturned hand, gently opened as is to catch the rain or feel the air. The brushwork and draftsmanship of this small painting seems to rival the great masters, namely Ruebens, who drew with a brush.

Prud'homme's characters are not twisted by personalities and emotion. They are to some degree inscrutable having an air of both clarity and competence. Her sitters are clearly seen with a directness of vision.