1990's

Spring Meadow
Spring Meadow
Harvest
Harvest
Tendrils
Tendrils
Echo
Echo
images 1 to 4 of 9
images 1 to 4 of 9
  1990's 1
The paintings of Elizabeth Palay, extraordinary colorist, currently are on exhibit at IVC. Palay has created paintings of splendid unconstrained colors, which glow against the white gallery walls and beckon the viewer to step inside the image. The bright mystery of the apparently simple paintings leads one to search for a visual story in the maze of the varied colors and brushwork of the painting.

The colors flutter against one another, rising and falling, creating a lyrical richness. There appears a field of wild flowers on a persimmon-hot summer day. At another painting, a dense, blue rippling brook glistens in the moonlight. These are personal interpretations. As one's mood changes, so, too, may one's vision mutate. The complexity of the colors bouncing together exhilarates and transports the viewer into another world.

At first look, the simplicity of the exhibit belies the sophisticated personal style of the artist. Palay works with a variety of palettes and allows inspiration to direct her choice of color, pattern and application as she proceeds. The result is a cohesive, complex, yet balanced painting and color is used with unusual freshness. Kent Rupp, art director at IVC said, "Palay's paintings are in the colorfield abstractionist tradition: they have a lyrical 19th century feel for light and space."

Charlotte Lewis, Marin County, CA 1992