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Finding a balance
Julia von Metzsch got her bachelor's degree from Boston University last year, spent time studying in France, and returns to BU in the fall to pursue her master's. Her small paintings on wood panel, at Mercury Gallery in Rockport, entice with the loose, fluid texture of her strokes. They're all spare Cape Ann landscapes, with none of the sentimentality that beach painters are prone to, and none of the sunny light.
Von Metzsch strikes a balance between abstraction and representation; her brushwork, and the way she carves out sea, land, and rock with broad strokes, make each piece nearly abstract. Then there's that delicious moment of coalescence, when the elements meld together and you see a familiar place.
In "Magnolia Beach," a patchwork of rocks, each its own dab of paint, tumbles down the panel in gray, mauve, and blue; a fringe of grass, and its own fringe of shadows, stops the sense of their soft fall. The sky in "View of Cranes Beach" has been gently swiped with brown - von Metzsch often uses a wet brush; her paint is nearly diaphanous. The landscape below dances with daubs of paint. She's like a poet, distilling the essence of a place in a few small gestures.
By Cate McQuaid
Globe Correspondent | August 13, 2008
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