This new exhibition of two- and three-dimensional works by Christine Bourdette marks her thirteenth solo exhibition with Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Although familiar, the information is new, continuing her fascination with geological forms and drawing inspiration from the landscape. Her enduring practice can be seen as its own kind of geology, if you define the scholarship as a careful study of how pressure and time manifest. The endurance test taken on by Bourdette is a testament to how success can be achieved through continuity and focus while up-cycling skillful gestures into unique symbols.
Two new sculptural, wall-reliant works are comprised of hundreds of hand-cut pieces of layered vellum. Each individual element has been bathed in pigment-based ink and, when assembled, vaguely resembles core samples that have been contorted into beautiful, parabolic shapes. They are visual representatives of the notion that the earth is an unending cycle of restlessness and transformation and that erosion can create perfectly imperfect objects.
A new series of experimental drawings and works on paper includes various printmaking techniques involving hand-hewn overlays such as cut-out veils and silver-leafed swaths of raised patterns that read like braille on Rorschach patterns. These works are paired with other water-based works on Dura-Lar, a non-absorptive substrate that creates a mysterious effect with her signature treatments. Bourdette’s images reference landscapes and speak to nature’s fragility with these frail materials, assiduous labor, and simple gestures.
The compositional strategy of bisecting the picture plane with a horizontal void is a recurring motif in Bourdette’s new two-dimensional works and is meant to enunciate the disconnect between human beings and the planet we occupy. This symbolic incision is less about contention, human vs. nature, than an estrangement between us and our habitat. With an uneasy eye on the horizon, apprehension about climate change is an implicit theme in this exhibition, and Bourdette will quickly admit that her work is a subtle call to action—a quiet protest, as all great works of art in their own special way can be.
The desire to transmit the sensation of being inside a landscape is also an ongoing aim of Bourdette’s work. Looking both down and up is important to the artist. There’s also the idea of pareidolia, the tendency to see meaningful images in random or ambiguous visual patterns. This notion is not lost on the artist, as cloud formations and rugged ridge-scapes exist formally on equal planes in her work. Those shapes are absorbed and reconfigured into abstract musings that reference the textural patterns of columnar basalt common to the Northwest, especially in the Columbia River Gorge and other places that have experienced volcanic activity. This exhibition is full of pieces teeming with sometimes incongruous colors that unexpectedly work; shocks of acerbic yellow and powdery pinks populate her compositions and easily tease out joy from the viewer. Bourdette’s work is ultimately an ode to how we perceive and remember the land while wishing for its permanence despite it shifting beneath our feet.
Two new sculptural, wall-reliant works are comprised of hundreds of hand-cut pieces of layered vellum. Each individual element has been bathed in pigment-based ink and, when assembled, vaguely resembles core samples that have been contorted into beautiful, parabolic shapes. They are visual representatives of the notion that the earth is an unending cycle of restlessness and transformation and that erosion can create perfectly imperfect objects.
A new series of experimental drawings and works on paper includes various printmaking techniques involving hand-hewn overlays such as cut-out veils and silver-leafed swaths of raised patterns that read like braille on Rorschach patterns. These works are paired with other water-based works on Dura-Lar, a non-absorptive substrate that creates a mysterious effect with her signature treatments. Bourdette’s images reference landscapes and speak to nature’s fragility with these frail materials, assiduous labor, and simple gestures.
The compositional strategy of bisecting the picture plane with a horizontal void is a recurring motif in Bourdette’s new two-dimensional works and is meant to enunciate the disconnect between human beings and the planet we occupy. This symbolic incision is less about contention, human vs. nature, than an estrangement between us and our habitat. With an uneasy eye on the horizon, apprehension about climate change is an implicit theme in this exhibition, and Bourdette will quickly admit that her work is a subtle call to action—a quiet protest, as all great works of art in their own special way can be.
The desire to transmit the sensation of being inside a landscape is also an ongoing aim of Bourdette’s work. Looking both down and up is important to the artist. There’s also the idea of pareidolia, the tendency to see meaningful images in random or ambiguous visual patterns. This notion is not lost on the artist, as cloud formations and rugged ridge-scapes exist formally on equal planes in her work. Those shapes are absorbed and reconfigured into abstract musings that reference the textural patterns of columnar basalt common to the Northwest, especially in the Columbia River Gorge and other places that have experienced volcanic activity. This exhibition is full of pieces teeming with sometimes incongruous colors that unexpectedly work; shocks of acerbic yellow and powdery pinks populate her compositions and easily tease out joy from the viewer. Bourdette’s work is ultimately an ode to how we perceive and remember the land while wishing for its permanence despite it shifting beneath our feet.
