On February 9th, I visited the “Northern Lights, Waterfalls, and Oceans” exhibition by Bernard Frize at the Galleria Gentili. Frize, born in Saint-Mandé, France, in 1954, has never shown his work before in Italy until now. His paintings intrigue viewers by their modern modes of presentations and use of color. The paintings resemble woven (almost quilt-like) fabrics with bright, delicate threads formed from parallel and perpendicular brush strokes. The concept of these works create a resemblance to the luminescence of polar lights and water.
This exhibition was held in two completely white rooms that had large windows for plenty of natural light and open space for these large and dynamic, eye catching paintings. The paintings were arranged so that you could see them from the glass door in the front, which welcomed in people passing by. Smaller paintings were also given the smaller walls and the larger ones an entire one by themselves so that they were not overshadowing others. Similar paintings were also placed near one another, though given enough space to show that they were still their own separate piece. For example, in the photo on the left, you can see three similar paintings and the two that were put on the same wall have analogous colors that make the colors pop more than if the paintings were further apart. In the photo on the right, there are two larger, similar canvases next to one another a much larger wall. Rather than having opposite coloring, they complement each other by having muted or more vibrant versions of the same colors. Both arrangements work well to create a sort of rhythm in the artwork, as they almost reiterate the patterns in the artist’s paintings.
Frize’s paintings vaguely reminded me of a form of artwork from my home state of Wisconsin where people paint wooden boards called barn quilts, which typically only use geometric shapes that Frize creates through lines. I enjoyed having this small reminder of home as I walked through the gallery. I could see how Frize used simple colors and lines to depict different aspects of the natural world. There was no indication of one painting being a waterfall and another being the northern lights, rather I think that in each one, depending on the viewer’s personal perspective, each could hold an element of either. He accurately depicts the how the natural world can appear so simple, but upon further inspection everything is so carefully and intricately created.
