Patty Hudak doesn’t make it easy for viewers; her paintings are enigmas. The seven oil-on-panel works at Minema gallery in Johnson seem, at first glance, to be abstractions. But the content is just familiar enough to provoke the ever-seeking brain: What am I looking at here? Are those roots? Branches?
Some kind of natural networking is implied in this exhibition, titled “Gyring, Spiring.” And Hudak’s forms seem loosely drawn from botany. But viewers might be surprised to learn that her Irish lineage and the poet W.B. Yeats are at play, as well.
Her artist statement explains it. “My artwork delves into the solitude of the natural world, offering a respite from the chaos of modern society. When I venture into the woods behind my home, the trees, plants, and microbial systems reveal themselves to me as otherworldly patterns of shapes and colors,” Hudak writes. “My paintings are an expression of the emotions that nature evokes within me, akin to the sentiments found in the poetry of W.B. Yeats. As a person of Irish descent, I am drawn to Yeats’ association of nature with spirituality.”
Hudak doesn’t paint trees or branches or roots; her subject is more the idea of branching, connecting.
Hudak’s walks in the tumbled woods, where growth and entropy are in constant concurrence, give her a sense of both unity with nature and of something much larger than herself. The shapes and lines that she observes outdoors tend to turn up in her daily practice of drawing first thing in the morning, before the day’s distractions begin.
“The forms that emerge from my drawings are the twisting shapes that Yeats describes as the form of the mind — gyring, spiring, subtle twisting forms,” Hudak writes.
Hence the title of this exhibition and a hint about its content. Hudak doesn’t paint trees or branches or roots; her subject is more the idea of branching, connecting. She gives visual expression to thought itself.
Each of Hudak’s densely painted panels is like a portal onto a small section of interconnected organisms that are not, in fact, contained by their rectangular parameters. A viewer might find that unsettling, like the idea of fungi quietly taking over the world. Yet despite the suggestion of inconceivable vastness, Hudak’s compositions have an uncanny sense of intimacy, too. We are privy to something not normally seen.
In some pieces, we don’t really know where to look. “Subtle Guile” is a mass of black-outlined red and pink forms flowing onto each other. If this piece were in motion, it would writhe. In another predominantly red piece, “Gaze,” Hudak allows more negative space, giving the network of branch-like shapes a sturdier appearance.
In “Spiring” and “Hidden Root,” Hudak creates drama with light and dark contrasts in earthy tones and a subtle sense of line from top to bottom. The latter technique was inspired by her study of Japanese landscape paintings, Hudak explained, in which the artist subtly draws the eye from a mountaintop down into a valley.
Hudak offers a focal point in “Tree of Life”: a pale blue bundle at the center, cradled by entwining, dark green twiggy forms. Though the painting eludes meaning, it’s hard not to see a chrysalis.
Sections of actual branches, which Hudak debarked, smoothed and painted matte black, are placed around the gallery on shelves or suspended from the ceiling. She calls them “Scattered Objects,” and their presentation gives them the gravity of sculpture. Whether or not it was intended, the recognizable objects provide the viewer tiny moments of mental relief, like commas in a long and challenging sentence. Sticks are not enigmas.
Though Hudak has embraced her Irish cultural identity, she honed her affinity for Asian aesthetics while living for a decade in China and Japan. Artistic traditions, particularly in Japan, introduced her to the idea of creating design from nature rather than copying nature, she said. For several years she has studied and practiced the Japanese woodblock print technique mokuhanga, and she is a founding member of an international group of artists devoted to the art form. She also creates individual and collaborative large-scale installations.
Hudak returned to Vermont six years ago but only returned to painting last year. “I feel like my voice is getting a little bit clearer, assimilating various influences and seeing where they land,” she said. “I put everything I know into this work.
“These paintings represent my acclimation back to Vermont,” Hudak added. “They are very much about walking in the woods behind my house.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Twists and Turns | Patty Hudak’s paintings at Minema call forth Ireland, Asia and Vermont woods”
This article appears in Apr 12-18, 2023.
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