The energetic composition Wolf Mother uses vibrant green color and underlying gestural brushwork to create a sense of movement and depth in order to deal with the complex psychological themes of connectivity and memory. Our memories consist of inherited associations that exist in our subconscious which give us the significance of place and identity.
courtesy of the artist
Francine Tint, Spider Woman, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. 26 x 71 in.
The White Room Gallery’s XX FACTOR is a celebratory exhibition marking the hundred-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote and gave them a political voice. One hundred years later, with voter suppression on the rise, Francine Tint’s paintings explore the idea of giving back through abstract expressionist means.
To appreciate Tint’s career trajectory we must examine the artist’s early training and work in costume design, which greatly impacted her layering process with paint. Tint realized that old masters such as Titian and Rembrandt were obsessed with surface and, like costume designers, they knew how to layer the soft with the hard and to define the details. In addition, as she tells it, Tint received great feedback from Clement Greenberg and further accolades for her work from her peer group “…by being good at it, I was accepted. Almost like jazz musicians, you enter the abstract art club by being good. I was like a painter’s painter.” Tint has spent the last four decades painting with confidence formed by these early experiences.
Each one of the four abstract compositions in XX FACTOR approach the application of paint in a very direct manner. The shapes in Spider Woman seem to possess very human qualities—a long horizontal sweep of brushwork with intermingling forms translates as a dynamic portrait caught in the midst of movement. Tint manipulates color and space to imbue each form with unique characteristics and personalities. Her highly developed visual vocabulary enables her to capture a wide array of expressions and moods.
courtesy of the artist
Francine Tint, Wolf Mother, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. 53 1/2 x 102 in.
courtesy of the artist
Francine Tint, Black Lagoon, 2018. Acrylic on canvas. 55 x 80 in.
For Tint, the naming of paintings come at the end of the abstracting process. They are based upon her feelings, literature, and memories, which affect the distance of our connections. Unlike many painters who direct the viewer’s eye down a certain path of truth, Tint leaves the door cracked open, giving the viewer the experience of their own interpretation. Take the action of the overall composition and spontaneity of the gesture of Black Lagoon—the black paint wrestles against the white ground and pushes the most indelible image forward.
courtesy of the artist
Francine Tint, Lurk, 2019. Acrylic on canvas. 54 x 33 in.
The viewer is enticed to enter Lurk, Tint’s one vertical painting. The depth of its paint layers act as an entrance into the space and remind the viewer that it is an artifice. The dynamic interaction of real and artificial solidifies the tension in the work and creates an immensely dramatic viewing experience.
And because of the confidence and generosity bestowed on her by Greenberg and her peers, Tint carries this positivism forward by her support and donations to worthy causes such as Girl Be Heard and the Woodstock Art Center.
The public is invited to attend a MASKuerade reception for XX FACTOR Saturday September 12, 5-7pm.
