DAVID SAUNDERS at FISCHBACH GALLERY
* * * * *BROKEN BRANCHES, is David Saunders' new series of landscapes of idyllic scenes around his studio in the Hamptons. Each painting presents a pastoral vignette with a silent lonely drama -- an abandoned lover, facing an ended relationship -- a broken branch that will grow no more.
To compose his dramas, the artist directed professional actors on the outdoor-stage of the reeded shoreline. BROKEN BRANCHES is a rare look at the healthy place for broken hearts within life's grand scheme -- a view that reflects Shakespeare's observation, "To love is to suffer, and yet, love blossoms among the broken branches."
To recreate the appearance of nature as well as the potent way that emotions color that vision, each Saunders landscape is visited by an hallucinary lovelorn ghost, to draw a poignant line between a broken heart and a broken branch.
These postmodern artworks are also masterful paintings and tender character studies that reconsider the tradition of romantic narrative landscapes by Bruegel and Watteau.
-- by Bertrand Kuspidahl (DER KUNSTGEIFERN Nov 2002)
* * * * * < 2001 2002 2003>
floor plan main hall staff