Cynthia Camlin
D Berman Gallery, through June 18
Cynthia Camlin’s new work takes her deeper into the explorations of perception and cultural paradigms. The works take on a philosophical emanation in their contemplative depictions of nature’s changes, showing multifaceted crystalline formations on panels and three-dimensional cubes. The properties of a monad – modularity, flexibility, and isolation – are especially significant to Camlin’s three-dimensional cubes. The crystalline forms on any given surface of a cube can mingle with similar yet separate crystalline forms on the other cubes. In isolation, the indivisible unit becomes the ultimate barer of self-containment, independent and unique with no beginning and no end, having the power of representation while reflecting the incorporeal activity of all other cubes.
Camlin’s earlier works depicted deer and elk engaged in combat while in complicity with the viewer. Her work since 1999 has turned outward to the conflict between man and nature, as well as inward in their impact. Utilizing the unique properties of an absorbent ground she developed over the years, each composition is built through the incremental layering of tiny geometric forms. By adding multiple layers of transparent color, Camlin achieves a luminous palette in each painting. A structural anthropologist concerned with the relationship between nature and culture, Camlin is dactylic, immediate, and always challenging in the complexity of issues she entertains in her work.
This article appears in June 17 • 2005.