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Respect for her conceptions
is compounded with respect for the technique she employs. Imagine the size of
the paper she uses: it is usually 60 inches by 40 inches, and she carries it
to the often exotic locations she favors. She sits herself down and somehow
sets the sheet out in front of her at a slight angle. A baking tray is what
she uses as a palette, with pots of plentiful water and a small number of sable
brushes at the ready. It is hot, sunny (the paper must be so bright) and she
has no pencil, and the weather forecast is uncertain.
I would say there is a certain drama to that, and she records
that occasionally the natives are unfriendly.
It's not easy to see how she paints, for her surfaces are well
worked over, but you can see that she not only floods the paper with colorful
wash, but also, as a consummate draftswoman, she uses the very tip of the
sable brush to define and accentuate her subject, holding the brush vertically,
like a zen calligrapher.
These are animated works; they move and have brio. They
are not, I think, especially influenced by other artists who paint nature
with a meaningful expressionism (Emile Nolde, Edward Burra, Charles Burchfield
or Georgia O'Keefe - all watercolorists, incidentally). I rather think Forrester's
paintings are quite original and tempting.
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