Brooding, indistinct and elusive, Margaret Neumann’s latest drawings and paintings attempt to evoke not so much what can be seen, but rather a submerged realm of memories and emotions.
“I was a clinical social worker for a long time, and I did therapy, so I’m used to dealing with more of the unconscious or the preconscious, and I’m not that uncomfortable with it,” said the 68-year-old Denver artist.
Eight of her newest works make up the inaugural exhibition in the Rule Gallery’s new location at the Dry Ice Factory, a 1929 industrial building that was transformed in 2007 into an art studio and gallery building.
It is a handsomely appointed room with parts of the original brick walls left exposed. But with 1,200 square feet, it is about half the size of Rule’s previous location at 227 Broadway — a diminution that cannot help but curtail the scale of the gallery’s offerings.
Though this debut presentation, titled “As I Once Knew It . . .” is Neumann’s first solo exhibition at Rule, she is a familiar figure on the Denver art scene.
She earned her bachelor and master of fine arts degrees at the University of Colorado at Boulder in the 1960s. There, she was a member of what later came to be known as the Armory Group, a loose association of students and faculty who had studios in an old armory building north of the school’s campus.
Many of them went on to become some of the most influential artists the state has produced, including Dale Chisman, John DeAndrea, Clark Richert and George Woodman.
Though quieter and more detached, Neumann’s approach loosely echoes the contemporary expressionist style of such international artists as Georg Baselitz, Sandro Chia and Francesco Clemente, who soared to prominence in the 1980s.
Like them, she employs a gestural, physical method of applying paint, layering and painstakingly reworking and reworking the canvas.
Rather than covering up her many changes, she allows traces of them to become an integral part of the composition. Most of her works have at least two or three previous permutations under the surface, each a shrouded but still ghostly and telling presence.
Neumann calls it a “tortured” approach, but it’s the only one that works for her. This creative struggle, not that different than the existential one that is inevitably part of everyday life at times, becomes physically embodied in her paintings, giving them added punch and poignancy.
The star of the exhibition is “Mothers of Romulus and Remus,” a haunting 48-by-66-inch oil on canvas. It depicts two largely indistinct females with featureless faces on all fours — one shown in profile, the other facing the viewer head on.
Much of the work’s uncomfortable feeling derives from its total lack of context — no hint of place or time. Instead, these figures simply float anonymously against an empty rust-colored background — everything rendered with brushy, expressive paint handling.
“Where Are We Going and Why Did We Leave,” a stark, ruminative portrayal of two wayward crows, who in some ways could be stand-ins for the two women in “Mothers,” is suffused with a melancholic, even mournful quality.
More restrained in palette, the simple composition sets the two black birds against a subtly modulated white background that could be interpreted as snow and ice or simply taken for what it probably is — an undefined abstract space.
Supplementing the paintings are four smaller oil-pastel drawings, and Neumann demonstrates the same level of technical mastery in this medium as she does with oil paint.
Her dark, meditative explorations of the vulnerabilities of the human psyche provide a strong start for this key new addition to RiNo — now clearly Denver’s top art district.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“as i once knew it . . .”
Art. Rule Gallery, 3340 Walnut St. The gallery presents its first exhibition in its new location in the River North Art Districta solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by veteran Denver artist Margaret Neumann. Through June 24. Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Free. 303-777-9473 or .
