Brenda Malkinson

Remnants and Restorations, 2008

In my travels throughout Europe, often a striking fragment of ancient art would grab my attention, such as a graceful hand or a head, remnants of a pattern on a cathedral wall or broken bits and pieces waiting for restoration.  Especially provocative to my artistic sensibility are the cracks and discolorations that contribute to the remnant’s place in time implying a witness to history known only to them.   The effect of retaining these bruises is to reveal the artistic intent of the piece, as if for the first time. I find incompleteness itself can be taken as a mark of age and credence.

There is something extraordinary in these remnants and restorations. Many are reproduced and put on view gardens and living rooms, mine included.  Some of the imagery in these paintings are those very reproductions accompanied by medieval cathedral embellishments documented in my sketches.  You will find sparrows in most paintings for the reason that they are a worldly bird.  I have found them the world over, small souls of familiarity amidst the ruins.

 

e-mail the gallery about this artist at info@scottgallery.com

---