Winter White portrays winter’s light

“Winter White: Small Studies Illuminated by the Stark Light of Winter”… “Winter White: Small Studies Illuminated by the Stark Light of Winter”

Bernadette E Kazmarski

March 10, 2004

Centre Art Gallery at UCP Pittsburgh, Shadyside

4638 Centre Avenue

Pittsburgh, PA 15213

(412) 683-7100

With the light of early evening filtering through naked trees, the snow that still rests between the railroad tracks glows in yellows and blues as the tracks disappear around a curve. You experience the precise, “homey” feeling of chilly, sunlit air and the smell of frost that hangs in the woods before dusk.

“Walking the Tracks” by Bernadette Kazmarski – like her other pieces in “Winter White: Small Studies Illuminated by the Stark Light of Winter” now on exhibit at the Centre Art Gallery in Shadyside – reveals a sensitive eye for the way light produces color in nature. “Whoever said that winter was just brown and gray wasn’t seeing the same world I do,” Kazmarski writes in her artist statement. “Snow reflects any color, depending on the angle of view and time of day, and even without snow the landscape is rich with the colors of jewels.”

In an impressionistic style, Kazmarski’s work, done primarily in pastel, is undoubtedly about capturing a particular time of day, and the certain slant of light, shadow and color in that moment. This exhibit focuses on the qualities of winter light, when the sun is at a lower angle and produces “stark” effects through bare trees and on the absorbent surface of snow. And each tiny piece (all works are roughly 6-by-6-inches) exudes a quiet feeling of affection.

In “Remnants,” tall, yellowing field grass bends and sways in blustering wind around an old fence post; a thicket of brambles and gnarled trees reaches up from behind it to a gray but pleasant sky. You feel like you’re standing on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere that is being overtaken by fields. It’s calming and somewhat sentimental.

This feeling is present in both her most “studied” pieces, like her elaborately layered and colorful “Winter colors,” and those that she cut directly from the small sketchbook that she always keeps with her. “Tree study,” she said, was a spur-of-the-moment sketch from a window in her home. She sketches the wild blackberry tree in her backyard that suddenly struck her with a “weeping feeling” she had to capture. Its twisting branches display an attention to space and form that is absent from many of her pastel works, but it retains the aura of calm warmth common to all the pieces.

A few works even have interesting asymmetrical spatial constructions or hints of abstraction, as in “Ducks,” to couple with her experiments in light and color. However, these are fewer in number than the straightforward nature scene.

Overall, though Kazmarski’s pieces show a sensitive eye and a confident brushstroke, their quietness isn’t quite as profound. The works are more “cute” than anything, and have a charming quality that would probably appeal to your grandmother more than to you. However, if the head-scratching of other art excursions has you feeling taxed, Kazmarski’s work might be the perfect easy-listening for your eyes.