Karin Davie

With her bold use of color and undulating, twisting lines, Karin Davie works at the intersection between representation and abstraction, creating sensuous, psychological, and completely exhilarating canvases. "In a sense, painting is like dance-the movement, the process, the image. But the moment you are making the painting, something else enters in," she explains. While her work seems spontaneous, the fluidity of her lines betrays an intense degree of concentration and a striking command of the medium. More than 50 works are featured in color reproductions, with many more color and black and white illustrations in the text. "It's not surprising to read that Canadian-born artist Karin Davie has a background in experimental dance-the swooping lines that make up her paintings are both the record and expression of an exuberant physicality. Referencing abstract expressionism and the eye-popping mod verve of op art, Davie's bulgy stripes (in paintings with titles likeWow,SmotherandPushed, Pulled, Depleted & Duplicated #15) undulate and drip around their big canvases with a swaggering command of effect and technique. The jargon-free essays by [Barry] Schwabsky and [Lynne] Tillman are of unusual interest-Schwabsky's 'Karin Davie: In the Thick of Painting' intelligently extends Davie's field of reference to include Ingres, Frank Stella, Robert Crumb, Looney Tunes, Edvard Munch and Kim Novak's provocative bun from Hitchcock'sVertigo. And Tillman's afterword, 'Portrait of a Young Painter Levitating,' is less a formal essay than a lyrical evocation of personality."

- Publishers Weekly