SUITABLY AND SATISFYINGLY EYE-POPPING, the mostly hard-edged color-field artworks now at PFA’s Kensington location reach back to the 1960s for strategies that remain potent today. There are two ‘60s pieces in the show, which contains a single entry by each of 11 artists. The oldest is a handsome 1965 study in color -- green, aqua, yellow, and centered lavender -- and geometric shape by Paul Reed, who was the last surviving original Washington colorist when he died in 2015. All but one of the other items were made since 2018.
However recent, the art seems to draw more than formal gambits from the ‘60s; it also shares the era’s directness, exuberance, and sense of optimism. Beverly Fishman’s sleek, multi-piece sculptural painting even partakes of the spirit of pop art, hinting wordlessly at commercial signage. Among the other high-gloss pieces are one of veteran local sculptor Mimi Herbert’s elegant constructions of molded plastic sheets, with hot pink atop paler yellow and pink; and Li Trincere’s dynamic arrangement of four red near-parallelograms, shadowed in silver, on a tapered canvas.
Two of the artists cunningly arrange colored squares: Robert Swain positions them on a single canvas, where the hues move from light to dark and cold to hot; Liane Nouri charts six single-color panels that shift from dark blue to light green, a procession jauntily interrupted by a yellow interloper. Ever so slightly looser, Tom McGlynn’s painting arranges eight not-quite-square pure-color rectangles on a neutral gray field.
The second oldest piece, Marcia Hafif’s mostly gold 1968 painting, is the only entry that features mottled color. But Ruth Pastine’s bright-red picture seeps softly darker along the sides, echoing Leon Berkowitz’s more epic transitions. Red or pink feature in most of these paintings and sculptures, even the one that at first seems incongruously monochromatic. Ken Weathersby places a pair of toothed abstract forms in opposition, bristling in black on white. Between the two, and barely visible, is a thin line of smudgy pink. It’s a reminder that all these coolly precise artworks are animated by warm hues.
