A SENTENCE STARTING WITH A CROWD OF STRANGE FACES OF STRANGERS

You never know whose face greets you when you enter a gallery, and that is reason enough to frequent them, because in this small city where the vast majority of stranger’s faces still can be categorized as Caucasian, even WASP, you or I might visit an art gallery to catch glimpses of less familiar faces, so I walked into Stewart Gallery, and Stephanie, Lane, and Marlow were probably working in the back so here are these strange faces greeting me, and they’re rather large snapshot size, but unlike snapshots, which now, thanks or not thanks to auto-focus camera technology, sharply stay in focus, Kolb’s faces possess a slightly out-of-focus quality, though not blurry in the way that pre-auto-focus portraits used to be, in fact, Kolb’s faces appear sharply etched, but somehow there is an interference to facial clarity that is exactly like the role shyness plays when you meet a stranger who immediately doesn’t fit the stereotypic facial features of the typical face in your community, then a hesitancy crawls into your perception, you nervously like a sparrow look down or away, step back from the face, if not literally then in psychological interior space, and there’s an element of noise, static introduced in your neural pathways, and I handle this, perhaps you do likewise, by the comforting alibi of telling yourself “I’m shy around strangers,” but more to the point would be a statement like, “I don’t know how to look a stranger in the eye,” and here’s a mass of these strange faces greeting me at the gallery who seem indifferent to my unease, and the only fact I knew about Kolb before studying her faces was that she did faces of Walt Whitman for a jazz oratorio by Fred Hersch based on Leaves of Grass, but they seemed elusive as the jazz was in my face but Whitman’s visage wasn’t on my monitor, and confronted with these strange faces of strangers occurs that Kolb’s muse in my perception could be Emily Dickinson, she who so invites your gaze to be anything but frontal, and who wrote, “Facts by our side are never sudden/Until they look around/And then they scare us like a spectre/,” and if you see Kolb’s faces as facts having a life indifferent to us, they look around, and have to admit, initially scare, though now they seem to present no reason for paranoia, they’re in that painful private reverie of self-definition in the face of cultural static known as sizing up a prospect, and you may think in my own quirky way that’s what I’m doing, sentencing an artist to the sweep of a single sentence, but what I’m after is the old-fashioned, hopelessly dated notion of “art appreciation,” without the judgments I’ll leave to those qualified to play art critic, I want to open a space for open-ended critical reflection that’s aesthetic and philosophical, meaning I’m less interested in saying that if you purchase a Marianne Kolb portrait your investment will be as sound as General Mills or Francis Bacon stock, that has to be left to those in the know, I know I’ve come to want to know these strange strangers who don’t need my approval to have a life beyond their box, that ever popular phrase “thinking outside the box” has always puzzled since everyone seems to be after someone exemplifying this which my entire life has been my form without trying, but who wants to pay, no self-pity, it’s what I have in common with Kolb’s strange strangers, and why after initial paranoia we get along, we want to be known outside of any favorite conceptual box of the moment, because there really isn’t anything strange in their or my face, we simply have no context, no meaningful background but undifferentiated light, a dialogue can erase the noise interfering with the clarity of facial features, let it begin with you, gazer, give these faces the horizon of your acceptance they hunger for

By Norman Weinstein, Boise ID

Marianne Kolb's expressionistic heads emerge from dark yet luminous grounds of rich color. Using just a few marks rubbed or scratched into water media, Kolb gives us intense psychological images of lonely and sorrowful figures cast adrift in the haunting half-light of a waking dream. They are up through Saturday at b. sakata garo, 923 20th St. Sacramento, CA.

Sacramento Bee
Critic's pick
Victoria Dalkey, Bee art correspondent
April 27, 2003

The fine art of scribbling
By Tim White

Some artists are searching, trying to make sense of something that plagues or intrigues them. Marianne Kolb, who is exhibiting new works this month at b. sakata garo at 923 20th Street, is one such artist. The act of seeking is fine when others aren’t involved; it’s hard for a viewer to make sense of your search unless you get lucky and the results are glaringly obvious. What works in Kolb’s paintings is the stunning look and mood evoked. They are all portraits of sorts, nameless people that are frantically scribbled out. For Kolb, they are vehicles for discovery. By constantly making marks, she’s trying to explore the emotions of the empty figures. And even if we don’t see results, we do see the endless layers of mark-making that take on a beauty all their own. The colors and depth that Kolb ends up with make even the emptiest search completely worthwhile.

NewsReview.com
Arts and Culture
Art Pick of the Week
April 24, 2003

When viewing the artwork of Marianne Kolb, one is immediately struck by the intensity of her commitment to explore the visual power of the human figure. She conducts this exploration by combining only the most essential visual elements of the human form through the use of a refined pallet and a skillful often instinctual manipulation of the materials. The result of her unyielding search to capture and express what lies at the core of human emotion has resulted in a deeply moving and contemplative body of work.

Initially, the dark black background of each painting seems to represent a dangerous or forbidden place, such as a moonless night or a disturbing dream. Yet, the delicate manipulation of the surface with a suggestion of layered colors and textures and the overall sense of a soft velvet-like space, creates a comfortable darkness. A safe place to hide or rest, the darkness seems to offer a secure, private location where the figure can leave behind any past mistakes, regrets or lingering fears. It offers a method to strip away any unnecessary physical or emotional elements, encouraging the figure to travel out of the past and move forward into the present.

Each figure is expressed with a minimal amount of visual information. Clearly alone in each image, the figure alludes to many concepts such as solitude, independence, loneliness, spiritual leadership and the universal condition of humanity. The figure’s garment, which appears to represent a robe, is created with blacks and grays combined with a strong, vibrant red or yellow. This use of color suggests not a physical but an emotional condition. The figure’s overall shape, scale and body position imply movement and depth within the picture plane. Subtle visual clues such as facial characteristics and indications of emotion seem to encourage the viewer to look for specific associations to individuals within our own lives or memories. Upon further consideration, we realize the artist’s careful presentation of each ambiguous figure is an encouragement to move beyond the importance of the physical representation of the figure and to focus on what lies within the human psyche.

Marianne Kolb invites the viewer to not just look, but to become emotionally engaged with the work. Similar to the artist’s experience when creating each piece, the viewer must have a willingness to experience the work with an open, honest heart. If able to surrender to this delicate state, the viewer will sense the artist’s intention to capture and present a moment in which we experience a true state of beauty and sorrow found within the human soul.

Rachel Osajima
Richmond Art Center Exhibitions Director

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