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[4](TAG, The Artists' Gallery, Santa Monica) Touches
of Matisse, Gauguin and the Bay Area Figurative painters appear in Rita
Stern's work. She blends these historic influences with contemporary moves--attaching
photographs and newspaper clippings to the surface--and filters them through
her own perspective to achieve a distinct style in these oil and collage
pieces.
Her landscapes are pleasant, but gain force with the addition of figures.
In Enough Sun , two figures are leaving the scene. They follow a
light-colored path that cuts through a dark green field. Although the perspective
in this and several other landscapes reflects an Asian influence, the pathway,
which narrows as it moves up the canvas, does not. These contrasts in color
and perspective accentuate the figures' movement away from the viewer.
This sense of moving away and turning away is typical of Stern's treatment
of the figure. She Said (Red Man) depicts a man facing sideways.
Since what he is looking at is not visible in the picture, the viewer must
speculate about his activity. Is he looking out a window at something or
is he simply lost in thought?
It is clear what the boy in Piano Player (after Matisse) is doing,
at least initially. Once again the figure faces away from the viewer, so
we do not see his face or hands. At the top of the picture clouds cut into
this domestic scene, suggesting that the boy's thoughts may be elsewhere.
Instead of practicing, he may be daydreaming.
In The Walk, a woman who is carrying a young child casts her eyes
downward, towards the child, to sug- gest concern and a feeling of protection.
There is a sense of menace in this painting that is not present in other
work. The vertical stripes in the background seem to close off the area
oc-cupied by the figures. Also in the background are two faceless figures,
one light, one dark. Because they are articulated only minimally they may
not be real. Perhaps they represent the woman's memories, or her apprehension
about the future. One can imagine the child, whose face we do not see, to
be sleeping. Yet, given the anxious undercurrent of the image and the ghost-like
quality of the background figures, the child may be dead.
Stern's presentation of figures who, for the most part, face away from the
viewer, emphasizes the distance between observer and observed. Because theis
focus is inaccessible or, at best, ambiguous, we are reminded how difficult
it is to surmise what another person is feeling or thinking.
