Review: Abstract, representational combine in satisfying show in La Conner

La Conner's Museum of Northwest Art has mounted an impressive show where abstraction combines with representational art to satisfy the intellect as well as the aesthetic sense. Featured are five highly regarded local painters and one glass artist, most of whom have a unique take on traditional landscape art.

Mary Iverson began her career as a plein-air painter and then concentrated on Port of Seattle scenes. Her large and small paintings in this show combine scenic views with scattered and piled cargo containers. Especially powerful is her adaptation of Albert Bierstadt's "Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast" (1870), a brilliant dialogue about the environment. In it, containers wash up on the pristine shore as it was 140 years ago.

Philip Govedare's paintings are done in a palette that gradually changes from soft pastels to intense reds and oranges. Undulating swells, depressions and water features fade into the horizon as they might be seen from a plane. There is no hint of human presence except for what appear to be empty roadways crisscrossing the land.

Margie Livingston's works are better considered "airscapes" than landscapes. "The idea of drawing air with a line is ludicrous," she says, "but that's what I'm trying to do." Working from a model, she attempts to capture light going through space.

Next to one of her paintings and lit by a spotlight is the model she used to create it — a branch within a grid of slender dowels. Together, painting and model give the viewer insight into her process as well as a sense that she has succeeded in drawing air with a series of lines intersecting in space.

Kelly Neidig's landscapes take form from strips of bold colors under mostly benign skies. John Keppelman's figurative paintings compress space.

Complementing the painted landscapes are three-dimensional cityscapes by West Seattle glass artist Boyd Sugiki. Most powerful are his deep-blue or black groupings inspired by the skyline of Istanbul. Though delicate and elegant, they evoke the vitality and continuity of urban life. Be sure to pay attention to the cutouts he uses to test his designs before blowing the glass.

The museum is also showing work by noted Puget Sound sculptor Tony Angell, known for his depictions of local wildlife.

Nancy Worssam: nworssam@earthlink.net