Palmer Art Museum

Earlier today i stopped by the Palmer Museum of Art. I didn't like most of the paintings, which are mainly European, American, or contemporary but one did catch my eye. That painting is World Beyond by Beverly Pepper. She painted this work in 1989 and its part of her The Odyssey Series. The painting is an oil painting with a white plain, mountains and the sky in the background. It's black at the front and engulfs part of the land creating islands and also zig-zags through the white plain. The description states that the black is water or the black streaks through the white plain are trails. It also says the plain is purposely blank to avoid revealing a specific time or location.

I personally think the painting is of a snowy plain in Alaska, and the black is an oil spill that's slowly engulfing the plain. I don't know the exact day of the painting but it was in the same year of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill which is an extremely strange coincidence if it was painted before, and if it was painted after that might have been her motive. The black is slowly engulfing the land which could be her warning people of the danger of oil consumption or abuse of the environment. The work could bring out emotions if you interpret the painting as an oil spill and are really against that. If you don't it seems like an nice landscape piece.

Beverly Pepper herself is a well known artist. She was born in 1924 in America and studied in New York, post war Paris and eventually moved to Italy. In addition to paintings she is also a well known sculptor. Her art is in famous museums all around the world in countries like the United States, France, Italy, Japan, and even Lithuania.

Overall i did not like the Palmer museum of art but i would be willing to try again in the future before making up my mind against it. The European and American paintings seemed old and boring while some of the contemporary works were strange, such as the picture of rocks.