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Shirley
Cannon
From The Earth
Tar and Oil Paintings
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Essence
2004
Oil, rice paper, fixall, varnish on panel
80" x 66"
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SHIRLEY CANNON PRACTITIONER OF MAGIC
Since September 11th, the art world has retreated into
a kind of return to nature as a spiritual answer to the
destruction for which we were not forewarned. Shirley
Cannon’s works suggest the desultory complexity
of nature alongside the underlying darkness. Cannon is
an abstract artist who paints imagined forces of nature,
large, mysterious, and loosely textured. She includes
collage to show the visceral beauty of the earth, as
well as it’s desecration. Cannon grew up in the
coal mines of West Virginia. She was a coal miner’s
daughter who left West Virginia at age seventeen, largely
to escape the coal dust that permeated everything she
saw and touched. Although she got away from the area,
the coal has never left her and art has become about
that place. She works with layers of Japanese rice paper
glued onto mahogany panels, and then combines them with
fibers, Fixall, various construction materials, varnish
and oil. Sometimes a painting takes as long as two years
to complete.
“Amber Nest”, a huge triptych, completed in 2001,
is a masterpiece. It is an amalgam of dark mahogany, swirling
rusts and fiery reds, as with the others in the series,
she starts with a body print of herself in coal dust and
abstracts from there, merging form and gesture with a bravado
rarely seen today. It’s almost like a stage setting
for the beginning of the earth. “Bituminous Veins” done
in 2002, is composed of oil, tar, paper and charcoal. It
is slightly different from the others in that the primary
color is green, perhaps a step forward in the new evolutionary
chain. Straddling painting and collage, Shirley Cannon
impressively mixes and matches sparkling glimpses of the
moment of creation with the mysterious shadowy underside.
She is a true practitioner in the tradition of magic. Cannon
controls the spectator’s reaction to her work. This
is the mark of a great painter.
--Molly Barnes
Molly Barnes is an art dealer and curator based in Los Angeles and New York
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Light
Field
2007
Tar, varnish, pigment on steel
80" x 24"
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Blue
Midnight
2007
Rice paper, oil, pigment on panel
14" x 14"
Blue
Midnight II
2007
Rice paper, oil, pigment, wax on panel
18" x 16"
Sanctuary
2007
Rice paper, oil, pigment on canvas
16" x 16"
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Citrine
Cloud
1999
Acrylic, paper, tar, fixall on panel
84" x 72" |
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Yellow
Clay
2002
Tar, oil, rice paper, fiber, fixall on panel
78" x 66"
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Bituminous
Veins
2002
Oil, rice paper, fiber, fixall, charcoal on panel
72" x 84"
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Clockwise:
Road
to Flaggy
2002
Tar, varnish, paper, oil on panel
22" x 22"
Citrine
Vortex
2002
Tar, varnish, fixall, oil on panel
22" x 22"
Nest With A View
2007
Oil, tar, paper, varnish, on panel
16" x 15"
Rose Remnants
2007
Oil, rice paper, fixall, varnish on panel
22" x 22"
Aboue
Belan
2001
Oil, fixall, rice paper, fiber on panel
22" x 22"
Gift
2002
Oil, fixall, varnish on steel
12" x 12"
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Clockwise:
Hologram
2004
Rice paper, oil, fabric on panel
22" x 22"
Water Nest
2004
Rice paper, oil, fabric on panel
22" x 22"
Crystal Falls
2004
Rice paper, fixall, varnish on panel
22" x 22"
Ideation
2004
Oil, fixall, rice paper, fabric, varnish on panel
22" x 22"
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Amber
Nest
2002
Tar, rice paper, steel wood, fiber, varnish on panel
80" x 168" |
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Red
Jade
2007
Oil, varnish, rice paper, fiber on panel
60" x 48" |
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Message
2006
Paper, oil, varnish on panel
22" x 22"
Rain
Answer
2006
Fiber, varnsih, oil, fixall, fabric on panel
22" x 22"
Portal
1999
Fiber, oil, varnish, rice paper on panel
13" x 10"
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Remnants
1999
Japanese rice paper, steel, varnish, coal dust on panel
67 ½" x 50 ½" |
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Red Dawn
2002
Rice paper, oil on panel
22" x 22" |
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Beloved Unconscious
2004
Rice paper, oil, steel wool, varnish on panel
22" x 22" |
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Centralia
2007
Oil, tar, fiber, pigment, steel wool, varnish, rice paper
on panel
72" x 84"
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