of ancient artistic values, with emphasis on
discipline and skill and on the epic myth.
Few people attempt to make art this way
anymore. Shelley Reed is one of those few,
and to encounter one of her large canvases
is to confront a long list of once-esteemed
skills and abilities, a list we feel we ought to
revere, but don’t really, and perhaps could
if the circumstances were right.
Shelley Reed offers us those circumstances.
She re-presents artists such as de
Hondecoeter without making strident
claims to innovation. And yet, she has
touched upon uniqueness: the classical
image, full of metaphor and mega-skill,
is retold almost verbatim, but physically
drained of hue. We’re stopped short by
all of this, by time and a black and white
world. That need to reorient ourselves in
front of one of her paintings is a significant
measure of her success: she made us look,
again and maybe again.
Once in front of a Reed like her outsized
and intimidating Tiger (see front cover),
do we yearn for color? We are well aware
of looking at black and white. But no, we
do not wish for it. Her canvases are akin
to film noir with its dangerous characters
and sullen beauties revealed to us in skeins
of shimmering silver. There is a beautiful
otherworldliness to the artist’s palette
that recalls Hollywood of old at the same
time it so completely pulls up a by-gone
artist like de Hondecoeter. Reed may have
actuality and facts, but at the same time
she enjoys the glaze of velvety grays.
Time. It breathes life into the old and
allows for the new to be possible. Reed has
no more control over time than the rest of
us. But she manages to benefit from it, and
to extend to us the opportunity to indulge
old art as new art, which is part old master
and mostly Shelley Reed.
Thank you to our sponsors, including
presenting sponsors Joyce and George Hill
and supporting sponsors Susan Thorpe and
John Baynes.
columbiamuseum.org
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