The Boston Sunday Globe, September 15, 1996

"Rendering the essence of a landscape"

(caption) This is Ann Christensen's "Perfectly Still."

The Boston Center for the Arts has long had a reputation for the unusual and the challenging, but in its latest exhibit of paintings, "Natural Immersion," there is an attempt to feature work of a less esoteric and more accessible nature.

"Many of our visitors say 'I like what you show here, but I don't really understand what it is about.'" Says curator Carol Anne Meehan. "So we thought that doing a landscape show would be something people could relate to."

True to the center's style, the artists in the show work with a lot of abstract imagery and try to communicate the essence of a landscape.

Linda Lindroth takes photographs, mounts them on wooden panels and puts oil washes over them, somewhat obscuring the photograph. She says her intent is to ignite memories the viewer might have about places they have seen, Ann Christensen paints specific scenes in bright colors. Cyn Maurice is fascinated with how darkness can affect the colors of landscape,

"Things that you see during the day are transformed when different colors are muted," says Maurice, who has been known to switch off her headlights and drive for hours around the lake at her summer home in Vermont, enthralled by the reflected moonlight on the rippling water.

"Some of these artists do draw on traditions like pointilism and impressionism, " says Meehan. "But there is no one specific tradition in common. What is distinctive about the group is that they all believe in the validity of an experience with nature, and in expressing that in a painting."

"Natural.Immersion" runs through Nov. 3. The gallery is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday and 7 to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. The Boston Center for the Arts is at 539 Tremont St. Call 426-5000 for more information.

by David Wildman