REVIEWS
ANN CRAVEN: ANIMALS BIRDS FLOWERS MOONS
By: David Rhodes
April 28, 2021
“Something seems to have changed between Ann Craven’s
last Karma exhibition in 2018 and Animals Birds Flowers Moons,
the current exhibition. Individual works now advance a particularly
estranging form of romanticism with even more boldness and
adventure than before. Together with this, Craven’s animal pantheon
has expanded to include bear cubs, peacocks, woodpeckers, and horses.
The paintings and watercolors here are all recent, so it is perhaps the
restrictive circumstances of pandemic life that resulted in a longing,
nostalgia, childhood memory: notional time travel rather than
geographic movement. The painterly devices—expressive, broad
brushstrokes, subtle blurring, radiant color—are fresh and vibrant.
This amounts to subversion, as the given imagery is so void of obvious
gravitas—the cute, amenable bear in a tree, the eager group of friendly
horses. It would be all very faux-naif if it weren’t for the painter’s clear
tradecraft. I think of the discrepancies found in Martin Kippenberger’s
work: his painterly ability, intelligence, and humor in deploying
“bad painting” and found imagery.”
IMAGE:
Ann Craven
Ann Craven, Roses (on Blue with Orchids, after Buffet), 2021
2021
Oil on canvas
84 x 72 inches
