TIO NYC: “OFF THE COAST OF ME” AT ST. PETER’S CHURCH

03 Dec TIO NYC: “OFF THE COAST OF ME” AT ST. PETER’S CHURCH

On Monday, November 26, I went to church, where I had a vision of the ocean and the sea. It was “Off the Coast of Me.” And beyond good: the Roman god Neptune had invaded the sanctuary and was smiling.

Yin meets yang in this show of artist Stephanie Fuller‘s lyrical yet muscular marine paintings, which continues through January 6, 2013 in the Narthex Gallery at Saint Peter’s Church, 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street, Manhattan.

Especially if your regular haunts include the galleries that line 57th Street and/or the Museum of Modern Art, all in the ‘hood, stop by and see the exhibition.To put it mildly – and pun shamelessly – Ms. Fuller is definitely making waves.

Fuller is a latter-day Abstract Expressionist, enthralled by her medium – acrylics sometimes layered with flecks of gold leaf, glass and sand — and imbued with the joy that comes from the physical act of painting. With her new body of work, the artist joins a tradition dating back to the Dutch Golden Age of painting, the 17th century, when the genre really took hold.

Some renowned painters created sea- and ocean-scapes with a classic serenity. Casper David Friedrich and Joseph Mallord William Turner – widely considered the greatest seascape painter ever – among them.

Others such as Winslow Homer, Theordore Gericault, Frederic Edwin Church, Claude Monet (“La Manneporte”) and weighing in from the East, Katsushika Hokusai, (the curls of his “Wave” are shaped like fangs), tended to focus on the evil twin: sea as aggressive predator, terrible and terrifying, lying in wait beneath a seductively smooth mirror.

Variations on the theme of marine art suggest the domestication of liquid expanses. In Richard Diebenkorn’s urban seascapes series, water is as approachable, even friendly, as a pet dog. (Ditto, Claude Monet’s  “La terrace de Sainte Adresse”)

And Fuller? Though I suspect  her natural tropism is more towards Turner rather than Homer, the lady claims a seat right on the fence:

“My goal is to draw attention to the feelings one experiences in the presence of water: peace, power, freedom and/or fear.”

Colors – forbidding dark green, happy Caribbean turquoise, baby boy blue, reds way hotter than Dorothy’s shoes – contribute to the dramatic exuberance of the work. In their elegance and (barely) contained flamboyance, Fuller’s paintings are, in a very real sense, self portraits.

Check out the many shades of Stephanie – toads, Haitia, Les Desmoiselles, Beyond the Coast of Me – on her website.

About the artist:

Stephanie Fuller began her career not as a painter, but as a studio singer and recording artist. She was also once the red hot lead vocalist for Kid Creole and the Coconuts, lending context to the aforementioned hot reds.  The home she shares with husband Tom Anthony on Fire Island, the couple’s travels and love of sailing inspired “Off the Coast of Me.”

For a view of the show see the video: