Arts Walk Pick 2018
by Alec Clayton for OLY ARTS
Debra Van Tuinen’s latest paintings in oil over acrylic are the culmination and apotheosis of a long and ongoing career in art. They are large (many up to 88 inches in height), bold and colorful. Each painting in the series — and you can expect to see as many as half a hundred in this spring Arts Walk — has two colors only, swathes of a bright color such as white, yellow, red or blue, over a field of a darker color. Free flowing like waves washed upon a beach, the bright colors are applied in wide and rhythmical strokes that vary from transparent washes to places where the paint builds up into heavy, opaque edges.
These paintings are abstract but inspired by nature. In addition to these, Van Tuinen will be showing a large selection of her latest works in encaustic on wood panels. Local art lovers know she has been famous for her encaustic paintings for decades. These latest ones are abstractions based on waterfalls and other elements of nature, and employ sumi painting techniques and dark passages reminiscent of Franz Kline’s black and white paintings but with complex layering and transparencies.
WHAT: Arts Walk Artist Debra Van Tuinen
WHEN:
Spring Arts Walk
5 – 10 p.m. Friday, April 27
Noon – 8 p.m. Saturday, April 28
HOW MUCH:
Free
WHERE: Waterstreet Cafe
610 Water St SW
LEARN MORE: OLY ARTS ARTS WALK Section