Reviews
The Birmingham Weekly
April 19, 2007
HE’S NOT FROM MONROEVILLE:
But at least it’s an Alabamian taking his shot at capturing the essence of Nelle Harper Lee. Brian Edmonds’ art show, Songs for Harper Lee, concludes its run at Bare Hands Gallery
April 21. His landscape paintings are an attempt to show the spirit of
Lee’s classic work, To Kill A Mockingbird. The paintings are
ethereal, boldly colored and quintessentially Southern in appearance.
Edmonds is a self-taught painter and his goal is a lofty one here. As
proud literary Alabamians we bow up our backs every time we hear about
somebody trying to reveal anything about Ms. Lee (Charles Shields was
skating on thin ice, for example). But Edmonds’ attempt is worthy
and his paintings are intriguing.
The Birmingham News
Paintings capture essence of Harper Lee's words
Sunday, April 15,
2007
BRIAN EDMONDS: Songs for Harper Lee. Bare Hands Gallery.
Through April 21.
An interesting point of departure for a visual artist is to
try and capture another artist's persona, in this
instance the writer Harper Lee by way of the classic book,
"To Kill a Mockingbird," By way of an intuitive
response, Edmonds' paintings have succeeded in many
ways. He creates landscapes that have the hidden character
of the Southern view, a powerfully simplified approach to
composition and a delightful feel for an almost childlike
view of nature.
Edmonds' paintings provide a bold and graceful
interpretation of nature through bold color patterns,
heavily outlined shapes and generally high horizons. At
first glance, the paintings recall simple children's
puzzles made up of five or ten pieces. The trees are a swirl
of green on a slender stalk, suggesting lollipops stuck in
the ground. In several paintings, he pulls the work together
by scratching the pigment with the wood end of his brush,
exposing fine lines of bare canvas. Other paintings suggest
the interstate highway interchanges that occur in remote
areas, connecting roads that traverse Alabama.
He puts a lid on all his canvases, capping them with
pieces of wood painted black. The effect is one of pushing
down on a narrow strip of sky and weighing against the
landscape with omnipresent force.
For Edmonds, Lee's book becomes a force that inspires
visual interpretation that is both intriguing and
insightful.
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