19 Sep 2019

Shirley Irons

Catskill Art Society

Reviewed by Saul Ostrow

Painters working with mimetic imagery often forget the central role that abstraction plays in their work. This is not the case with Shirley Irons, who mines her sources for visual data and then converts it into painterly processes. Taken together, these elements produce a semblance, an impression that can be likened to her referent. Regardless of subject, be it melting snow, a highway, the night sky, or the glow of a television screen, her paintings hover between the literalness of their means and what they represent.

Looking at Irons's paintings can be a bit like watching a game of tennis. In this case, we track back and forth as the story of their making and their imagery vie for dominance. All too often these days, we spectators recognize what it is we are looking at and fix its meaning even before we comprehend what is before us. I find pleasure in these works that slowly reveal themselves, and as such afford no pre-cognition.