The Colby Echo

Issue date: 2/9/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Courtesy currents3

The arrangement of the current exhibits in the Colby College Museum of Art is deceptive. Upon entering, the viewer first comes upon a dramatic installation of floor to ceiling billowing white sheets that takes up the entire room, work by Taiwanese artist Lihua Lei. By contrast, a hush falls as one enters the next room that showcases the quieter yet equally strong works of art professor Harriett Matthews in her solo show, titled "Recent Drawings and Sculpture". Matthews has been teaching at Colby since 1966.

This body of 45 works is a result of her past travels through Greece, a documentation of feelings, observations and memories. While a camera can adequately record places seen, it is the creative artist's hand here that makes the viewer feel her intense engagement with ancient architecture, folk patterns and the natural world. Her attention to detail prompts each viewer to walk up close to appreciate her twenty or so pencil landscapes. Though her lines are drawn with a light hand, they maintain such deliberate precision that even in shades of grey they come to life. On the hillside illustrated in 'From Spiro's Place View I,' each individual tree is so meticulously rendered that it demands respect, particularly that of anyone who has ever been too lazy to doodle the leaves on a tree. This part of the featured collection is oftentimes reminiscent of the style of Vija Celmins, a contemporary artist from Latvia whose graphite depictions of water and waves present a similarly realistic and meditative perspective on nature.

Matthews also seems to have taken inspiration from her sojourns in Greece in her steel sculptures which are often touched with oil paint, perhaps to give them yet another dimension.

Many of her sculptural works feature elements that might normally seem incongruous or disproportionate, but make sense within the context of the theme of the exhibition. Grecian minarets and tiny oil painted trees are paired with sweeping arcs, platforms and spear-like shapes; miniature houses are dwarfed by giant industrial-looking zigzags. The sculptures appear to be monochromatic from a distance but actually contain many different variations of metallic colors, ranging from a light silvery green to a deep bronze. It is through these subtleties that the different media in the show cohere so successfully. The artist's bronze reliefs unify her approaches to both two- and three-dimensional imagery. There is a feeling of folk art, perhaps derived from landscapes and buildings Matthews saw in her travels; they are detailed, finely crafted, and blend contemporary and classic shapes and techniques. In particular, 'Theologos/Malesini' stands out as a fine example of Matthews' ability to transform what may have been just another hillside scene in Greece to a finely textured alto-relievo that tempts the viewer to reach out and touch the work. It is well worth spending time with these wall hangings and try and decipher them.

The exhibition will be up until Feb. 18.

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