Solitude and joy in earthy mode

“Cultivating My Garden”

Nellie Lou Slagle

Tues.-Sat., 11a.m.-6p.m.

Through Oct. 10, 2005… “Cultivating My Garden”

Nellie Lou Slagle

Tues.-Sat., 11a.m.-6p.m.

Through Oct. 10, 2005

La Fond Galleries

1711 East Carson St.

(412) 431-3337

La Fond Galleries is located between Tom’s Diner and Chocolate Sensations on East Carson Street in the South Side, but don’t let the strange placement fool you. This sometimes stark-looking frame is actually one of the hippest galleries in the city, frequently featuring one-man shows from some of the most avant-garde and established artists – its exhibits are often as cutting edge and conceptual as anything in Manhattan. And though you probably can’t afford anything (most works are for sale if that Christmas check didn’t go toward your last kegger), it’s okay to say, “I’m just looking.”

La Fond Galleries’ latest exhibit features established artist Nellie Lou Slagle, who, though she moved around quite a bit during her studies, now resides in her studio in Bloomfield. Her latest collection of paintings and mixed media pieces, “Cultivating My Garden,” expresses the solitude and joy she found in transforming her space into a garden, attempting to, as she says, “create my own world and capture the feeling in the studio.”

Slagle’s pieces, mainly large-scale oil works, are reminiscent of de Kooning and Pollock, contemporary artists whom she greatly admired as a student at Sarah Lawrence College in the late ’50s. Slagle’s flowers are abstract, yet approaching figuration with a concentration on color. Don’t be turned off by the floral figuration of an aging artist. Slagle’s pieces are as active and emotional as her influences and contemporaries.

Slagle says she is “motivated by the colors” rather than the form, sculpting her canvases and oil daubs into “brilliantly modulated environments,” plucking away preconceptions of traditional flower-influenced art. While pastels do place among the works, there are just as many explorations into rugged earth tones, vivid hues and encaustic.

Smaller pieces, done on hand-made paper, exploit Slagle’s college exercises in mixed media and collage. These “shape and color” forms of gold and pastel, oil and ink bring to mind a young Barnett Newman’s paper and paint. Slagle, however, has been working for the past 50 years developing her style, creating something unique.

Some of the most interesting pieces are her encaustics, tucked against the front wall of the back gallery. Among the white modernism of the space, these two canvases look brutal and primitive, with slashes of ink and muted, shattered squares. The gilded chemicals resemble smelted crown jewels melting down the canvases. Slagle enjoys the challenge of creating chemical stains against staggered geometry. “It’s difficult,” she says, “to work with encaustics on such a large scale.”

Though recognized with shows and accolades of her own, she attributes her success to her teachers and her training, as well as her creative interaction with her surroundings. Working as a successful painter, weaver and sculptor for nearly 50 years, Slagle has continued to learn and educate throughout her life, even teaching weaving to elementary school students. When asked about her advice to young artists, she advised: “Follow your passion. Life happens [so you have] to create your own world in the studio.” But most of all: “Do what you love and don’t fuss with trends.” It’s fine advice from an artist who has made a successful living out of doing what she loves and never concerning herself with fads.