Reviews

By
Mark Jenkins
Washington Post, May 20, 2019

Catherine Levinson
The  landscapes and still lifes in Catherine Levinson's “Color in May” are  stylized yet essentially realistic. The fanciful element in the Gallery B  show is the use of color. Red trees, maroon shadows and yellow skies  are among the phenomena in these paintings, rendered in gouache on paper, that are seldom seen in nature. 

The  Bethesda artist acknowledges her affinity for the work of Henri  Matisse, whose bright Mediterranean palette and simple, hard-edge shapes  are an evident influence. Matisse is known for his arrangements of  paper cutouts, and Levinson’s forms are as if they had been defined by  scissors rather than a brush. 

Levinson’s streamlined vistas  include barns that appear American and tree-lined roads that look rather  French. The rustic thoroughfares seem to be her essential subject, and  not just because they could be somewhere in Provence. The play of simple  uprights vs. open sky provides an elegant geometric symmetry, while the  roads lead the eye off the picture into infinity.

Catherine Levinson: Color in May

Through May 25, 2019 at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Ave., Suite E, Bethesda, Maryland