Juxtapoz Magazine - Great abstract works from Dena Schuckit: The Garden is a Raging Sea

Great abstract works from Dena Schuckit: The Garden is a Raging Sea
Tuesday August 24, 2010

The abstract can be tough to master – we even recently got into a discussion with painter and teacher David Choong Lee about the abstract being harder to master than the figurative. In The Garden is a Raging Sea, a new solo show from Dena Schuckit, the artist gets it right.

This solo exhibition will be featuring new paintings and prints by Dena Schuckit, an artist internationally recognized for her work as a master printer with Crown Point Press in San Francisco who currently lives and works in London.

The garden is a raging sea,

The hurricane is snarling;

Oh, happy you and happy me!

Isn't the lightning darling?

From Ogden Nash, A Watched Example Never Boils

Schuckit's paintings initially greet the viewer as abstract compositions with collisions of line and color. They appear as foreign landscapes, full of allure and mystery, that become more discernible as the viewer looks closer. News photographs that accompany the headlines of urban and natural disasters infiltrate Schuckit's compelling work.

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Her painterly and poetic compositions are, in fact, images derived from plane crashes, automobile accidents, war, fire, and the aftermath of severe weather. Yet, despite the origin of the works, like the lightning in the Nash poem, the images and colors in Schuckit's work are surprisingly beautiful.

Schuckit collects entire slide shows of photos from online news sites. By ordering and organizing them, she captures the drama and dynamism of the disaster and the surprising and unplanned landscape that is the deconstructed physical manifestation of these events. She imparts an order to the chaos, and in the painting that emerges, pattern, shape, color and event overlap and repeat in a complex and connected way that highlights the relationship between civilization and nature. Placed out of context, there is a strange and unexpected beauty in these source images that transcends the specific incident and becomes unrelated to the reality of the event. The contrast between disaster and sheer beauty makes these works highly unusual and unique.

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About the Artist

Dena Schuckit received her BFA in 1992 from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and her MFA from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. She was a master printer with Crown Point Press for twelve years.

Schuckit has had numerous shows in London, and will be exhibiting in Denver and New York this year. Her work is featured in collections at the University of the Arts, London and the Parsons School of Design, New York.