Hawk and Hive Welcomes Spring with an Explosion of Color

ANDES — Counterpoint and GOBI, the just-opened two-person exhibition at Andes’ intimate Hawk + Hive gallery offers a striking exploration into color and form. The show pairs the distinctly contemporary, geometrically informed painted paper collages and oil paintings of American painter David Hornung with the luminous imaginary creatures of Netherlands-born ceramicist Brigitte Bouquet. Both artists’ work takes a highly tactile approach, and both are local artists with an international presence.   

Hornung’s oils and painted paper collages -- layered arrangements of color which interact optically -- are united by his theme of Counterpoint, a reference to the musical influences that have shaped the artist and his work since childhood. Controlled yet lyrical, his multi-media compositions are created through finely tuned color theory and improvisation. 

  “Think of the solo saxophonist who plays Misty,” says Hornung. “He’ll start with the basic melody of the song and take off from there. It’s improvisation from there on. I liken my process to that.”

   The process is far from easy. Hornung largely works with newsprint on board. 

   “I start by taking about 120 sheets of newspaper and newsprint, and paint each of the sheets a different color,” he says. “First, I know the dimensions of the board I will be using and work within that size. I decide on a central palette, choose the papers which suit that palette, then cut and tear the painted paper into fragments. apply them to the wood, and revise as I go along.   Sometimes a color is just a little off-and I can correct it by covering that plane of color with another, continuing to make a more layered composition. Mistakes can be fruitful.”

  First schooled in academic painting, Hornung’s practice was radically altered upon seeing a landmark exhibition of New York School abstract expressionists and color field painters. 

  Today, as well as being a practicing artist, Hornung is a highly-respected  color theorist whose books on color theory are used in universities all over the world.  In addition, Hornung holds workshops teaching design, collage and color theory.  Coming uo soon are workshops in Greenville, New York and Woodstock. 

    “I was a professor at universities for a number of years,” he says.  “But I really love these workshops,” says Hornung. “The students who attend are usually older and more serious.  Some are beginners and some are serious practitioners.  I do it because I love to talk about art and be around people who are interested in art and I want to share what I know.”    

  A visual counterpoint to Hornung’s works is Brigitte Bouquet’s GOBI, a series of whimsical creatures of the desert fashioned from repurposed ceramic pieces, and fragments and stains she has used in her practice over the years.  These stains and fragments give life to these creatures, as hair, skin color, and decorative clothing. She incorporates wood for extremities.  

   In her studio in Andes, Bouquet operates two kilns and has developed her own method of painting on clay: after the first firing, she uses wax to mark out areas she wants left unpainted, resulting in sculptures that mix vivid color, unpainted clay surfaces and unexpected juxtapositions.

Bouquet’s work, like Hornung’s is the result of an extremely practiced hand.  Bouquet grew up in the Netherlands. Renowned for its ceramics, it’s where she first apprenticed to a ceramicist, decorating dinnerware in the centuries’ old tradition of Delft blue.  She soon departed from traditional styles to create a series of hand thrown “wobbly” plates, irregularly shaped, and food-safe – and was soon sought after by collectors and consumers of comestibles.  Her “Wobblys” are now collected world-wide.   Following her initial ventures, she apprenticed further, learning different methods of molding and firing, creating her own glazes and building the technical foundation that underpins everything that followed.   After following her husband to Chicago for his work, her own practice took a different turn.

  “I discovered my stains were no longer food-safe,” says Bouquet.  “I had to move to sculpture to make sure I was creating objects people would not eat on.”  

  Ten years ago, she and her family moved to the Catskills, to explore a terrain which continues to broaden her practice. 

 ”I am not sure I would be creating figures who inhabit the Gobi desert if I did not have this wild and vast landscape to draw from,” she states.    

   For more information about Brigitte Bouquet: brigittebouquet.com. For upcoming David Hornung workshops, go to davidhornung.com

Photographs by Rob Brune