Ashlee Orellano, Long Beach Mueseum of Art

Hello, Art 15! It’s Ashlee Orellano here to discuss Sherrie Wolf’s Baroque Sensibilties exhibit currently on display at the Long Beach Mueseum of Art. 

Sherrie Wolf is a painter from Oregon best known for her still lifes with atmopheric backgrounds, contemporary realism, and vivid coloration. Wolf incorporates the past through her historical backgrounds that pay homage to well known artists- specifically those of the Baroque period.

The Baroque Sensibilities exhibit explores the Baroque period, inspired by classic paintings, to create original works of art. Spanning from the late seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, the Baroque period was a time of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur. It featured exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and artistic sensationalism. Wolf’s expertly painted works begin with inspiration from classic works from this time as a background and her organized choice of objects set within the paintings’ foreground.

Wolf’s work embraces the original paintings and inspirational images and takes them into her own personal direction. She does this through depth of field, reflections and play of light, palette, and additions of modern, everyday objects- creating a unique setting to give the viewer a fresh look and a chance to revisit historic works in a new light.

One painting in particular that caught my attention was  “Self Portrait 2012” is based on Gustave Corbet's masterpiece called "The Artist Studio, A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in My Artistic and Moral Life" (1855). It is oil on linen with intense deep color, and dynamic light and dark shadows. It is 105x70 inches and its massive size was only made more engaging by the fact that it hung solitary on a large white wall.

Left: Self Portrait, 2014     Right: Self Portrait, 2012

Besides the size, the role reversal made the painting particularly striking. The painting, referencing “The Artist Studio, A Real Allegory of a Seven Year Phase in My Artistic and Moral Life", places a modern day Wolf as a painter in a scene of a Baroque era model painting session. She confidently sits in her chair painting, doing what she does best, while the man besides her looks at her work with an expression of wonder and infatuation. Her work consists of anachronisms, but in this one she is the anachronism- which is fitting because it demonstrates who she is as an artist and her work as a whole. The role reversal shows her in a position of power, in control of her own vision and aesthetic while simultaneously borrowing from works from the past.

Left: Still Life with Diana and her Nymphs, 2007    Right: Still Life with Puget Sound, 2012

The collection as a whole effected me because of how elegant and graceful the pieces were. Although the older paintings she references where copied intricately, they seem more backdrops to her still lives. The modern day objects were given life by the background scenes full of animation. The objects complimented the backgrounds and it felt like the background -past- and the foreground - the future- were working together to create one successful, coherent piece. It inspires me to learn from the accomplishments of artists of the past in order to improve and grow as an artist. Her work also inspires me to focus on my pieces collectively to strategically execute them so the parts have a life of their own, but also work together to create lucid and coherent piece.