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Following the Line

When contemplating different options for the latest show at the Spectrum Gallery, Barbara Nair decided to focus on something that is the basis for everything else.

The line.

“I’ve always been inspired by what I’ve learned from the three kids I brought up. I took them to endless art activities and museums. And I learned that a line is not just a straight line. It can take so many forms. You can see it in this show. Drips to curves to dots. Various thicknesses. It can be used in any medium. The line moves into shapes that move into actual works of art, landscapes, still lifes, abstract. It all starts there with the line,” says Nair, the gallery director at Spectrum, and the executive director of Arts Center Killingworth.

The line is represented in many forms in the show, which will run through Friday, March 3 at the gallery, 61 Main Street, Centerbrook. There are three representational pieces and the rest of the artwork is abstract.

“For the representational pieces, the use of line in objects is just so strong,” she says.

One representational piece focuses on a piece of garlic, and the line runs through the long roots on a horizontal format. Another representational piece echoes that horizontal line, in a line of trees. The third representational piece takes as its subject the human form.

Moving Dots

Nair says the painter Paul Klee once described the line as “a dot that went for a walk.” She says lines are also sometimes described as “moving dots,” a description that is apt while discussing the work of one artist in the show, Robert Gregson, a nationally known and award winning artist who uses architecture in his installations.

“In his wall sculptures, his work moves,” Nair says. “Anyone can change the look of the piece by moving different parts around. They can formulate different aspects of the line, making it a rectangle or triangle, or dots will follow other dots. I love the idea that people can change the artwork, if they prefer.”

The work of Gregson, and others in the exhibit, challenge the idea that a line is static.

“The dot implies travel, like math, to infinity,” she says.

The concept of the line informs not only the individual pieces, but also the installation of the show itself.

“In every show, it’s important to notice when you’re putting one piece next to another in terms of how they work together. And to do that, you have to identify the strongest line in the piece. Where is it pointing? Is it pointing right or left and to what, and how? Where do we want the eye to follow?” Nair says. “So that comes up in installations all of the time and in this show, it’s super important. You don’t want to have a wonderful painting sitting there, and all of the other pieces looking in the other direction.”

Yes, that would be rude, she concedes.

In addition to serving as a core element of the individual pieces of art, and in organizing an exhibit, the line plays an important role in terms of creativity, Nair says, and that is in how it can allow both children and adults to develop their “art voice.” She says that lines should remind people that “we all played with art once, and it was fun!”

Creating Art, Having Fun

“Young children develop their art voice between the ages of two and five,” she says. ‘They play with line and outline and shapes. They’re not sitting around conceiving of abstract paintings. They are just having fun and inventing something. So, for me, when working with lines, reminds me of the importance of that childlike quality when it comes to creating art. I mean, look at Jackson Pollock in his prime. I’ve seen videos of him with his work on the floor and he is literally taking paint from cans and shaking it onto the canvas and dancing around the studio. Whatever might be in his mind about creating layers, and how lines are intersecting, to me he looks like he is letting himself just go.”

She was reminded of that when talking with one of the painters who will be showing his work in the current exhibition. Jay Babina, of Branford, has always been a landscape painter.

“And for this show, he did a work that is abstract. And in all the years I have known him, I have never seen him do an abstract work, and it is quite lovely. And I said to him, ‘Jay, it looked like you were having fun,’ and he said, ‘Yes, I did.’ So that’s something special. We put him on the postcard for the show because we thought it was so special.”

Spectrum Gallery and Store is open Wednesday through Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The Gallery is an expansion of the non-profit arts organization Arts Center Killingworth. For more information call Spectrum Gallery 860-767-0742 and visit www.spectrumartgallery.org. To learn more about the Arts Center Killingworth call 860-663-5593 and visit www.artscenterkillingworth.org