The playroom: between a hard and a soft place 2003
Vancouver artist Marcia Pitch returns to the painted canvas after years of work in creating 3D assemblages and installation art. As with her previous work, this new series employs toys and knick-knacks redolent of childhood. Ms. Pitch paints these playthings as eye-popping visions of innocence, and sets them on richly layered, multi-textured collages of images garnered from the print media. These collages speak of the ironies, complexities and confusions of our modern world and stand in great dramatic contrast to the brightly hued figures of simple childhood toys that dominate the foreground. Ms. Pitch has brilliantly created a palpable and powerful tension between purity and corruption on her canvases, offering only, as a resolution, an uneasy, yet dynamic truce.
Marcia Pitch has entered the realm of German Expressionism; and her remarkable, mature, body of work clearly references Max Beckmann. A la Edward Kienholz and Claes Oldenburg, Ms. Pitch also nods at American Pop Art. Through her wit; sensitive use of color; careful selection and juxtaposition of images from popular culture print media; and elegant sense of composition, Ms. Pitch seems to be addressing our deep anxieties as to how to maintain, achieve or even reconcile a childhood state of grace within the mayhem and madness of our modern world.
Art + Soul Gallery
