Trotter 'Drapes' art work in Gallery
Campus Times
March 6, 1998
Associate Professor of Art Ruth Trotter was honored with a reception
for an estimated 100 guests who attended the Harris Gallery opening of "Draped"
March 1. Teaching at La Verne since 1989, Trotter's show "Draped"
represents her most recent work. She is shown standing before "Yellow
Hanging Spheres On Red." Her show will be up until April 3. Gallery
hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
A reception was held in The Harris Art Gallery Sunday, March 1. It
presented new paintings created by the University's very own Associate Professor
of Art, Ruth Trotter. The collection is entitled "Draped."
The collection holds true to its title in every sense of the word. The
paintings all include two elements; drapery and a sphere. Two very contrasting
elements that compliment each other to create an illusion that the artist
is trying to express. The elements in the paintings however, are not the
only contrasting elements used. There is also a drastic change in the color
used for the drape and the color of the sphere that accompanies it.
Trotter said that the painted drapery offers "a complex surface
terrain of form and depth. This form of imagery in place of a flat color-field
becomes a reference to the origins of Modern Painting."
"The drapes are complex and they contrast with the simplicity and
purity of a perfect form, the spheres,"said Trotter.
The bright colors that are incorporated into the paintings were an attraction
and an eye catcher for many of the people present at the reception. These
oil paintings are done on silk, masonite, or Luan canvases.
"The paintings are very rich in color," said Mary Ellen Kilsby,
a Claremont resident who has watched the artist grow and mature. "Alot
of the paintings make me smile and make me want to wrap them around myself."
Other people who were present were more analytical in observing Trotter's
work.
Eduardo Sanchez, friend of Trotter's who went to graduate school with
her said that there are psychological, intellectual and physical aspects
of the paintings.
Sanchez said, "These paintings allude drapery to theater. There
is a curiosity as a sense of what is behind the drapes. The sphere being
the engaging form up against the mysterious drapes."
"Painting itself has become a symbol for our cultivated notions
of beauty and illusion," Trotter said.
The "Draped" collection will be in the Harris Art Gallery
until April 3.
