Carol Barsha: A Piece of Magic Reviewed in the Washington Post
By: Mark Jenkins
The colors are vivid in Carol Barsha’s depictions of flower-filled meadows, but the boldest thing about her compositions is the positioning of the blossoms. Red, pink and yellow flowers, often larger than life-size, claim the foreground of the local artist’s mixed-media drawing-paintings. The effect is to make visitors to Barsha’s “A Piece of Magic” feel more like participants than spectators.
Barsha titled the Gallery Neptune & Brown show after her former teacher Philip Guston’s description of painting: “an illusion, a piece of magic.” Like Guston, Barsha flattens and simplifies forms and downplays perspective. Behind the abundant flowers are lime-green hillocks and powder-blue skies, but they’re rendered with little sense of depth. Even occasional collaged elements, such as the cherries that float in midair in “Paradise,” barely break the near-level picture plane.
Her work represents “highly personal voyages of loss and joy,” according the artist’s statement. Yet metaphorical darkness is hard to discern in these artworks — even in the only nighttime scene, “Midnight,” whose sky is a deep but luminous blue. To gaze into Barsha’s pictures is to be thrust into realms of dreamlike color and sensation.