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finished work. Areas of color reinforce or contradict the underlying grid. Cole sometimes employs the language of landscape painting to discuss
The interaction of color defines the work’s tone and emotion. Acts of her paintings, referring to a work’s horizon, or noting the source for a
scraping, drawing, re-painting, scrubbing, revealing, and obscuring are certain shape as the Oregon roadside or the shore. Yet, her works have
all employed as the world being created gains depth and life. an atmospheric quality, indeed, a depth and an undeniable mystery,
that take them beyond the observed towards the imagined. Part of this
Clearly, Cole is an extraordinary colorist. Her reds, oranges, and derives from Cole’s compositional strategies: grid contradicts horizon;
yellows glow like flames; her blues, from pure ultramarine to cobalt to horizons rarely meet the edges of the canvas; and the sheer power of
blue gray, are deeply atmospheric; her greens are redolent of spring her color, that all conspire to foil the notion of landscape and reinforce
grasses and humid forest. Even in the softest palette of pastel pinks, the viewer’s experience of a separate, previously undiscovered, world.
greens and grays, her work is assertive and assured. Yet, as important In the end, it is the uniqueness of Cole’s vision, honed over years of
as it is, color is nevertheless a means to the creative end, not the sole disciplined work and masterfully executed, that draws us to, and holds
purpose, of the work. us in, this floating world of her making.
Barbara gibbs
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masters of today