Gail Dawson

"Soulsbyville"  2009  oil on panel  24" x 24"

"Malvern #6"  2010  oil on panel  48" x 48

"Malvern #3"  2009  oil on panel  48" x 48"

"Bernal Disturbance (Final State)"  2008

"Bernal Satellite View"  2008  oil on panel  19" x 22"

Gail Dawson's paintings are another reminder of the ever so slippery slope between representation and abstraction. She has used representational images to convey abstract shape and form, as in the google satellite-like image directly above, but more often she paints abstract images that hint at and suggest representation, like the wave-like formations in the first three images here, consisting of multi-hued rectangular planes peeling apart like so much construction paper and cardboard debris. In "Bernal Disturbance" she began with a straightforward realist rendering of an urban neighborhood (see the first state here) and then "disturbed" a large portion of it into abstraction as if the process from representation to abstraction was a kind of force of nature. This suggestion of natural forces, of waves and tornadoes and earthquakes, is central to her work and evokes the fascinating links between chaos and order that is expressed throughout nature.

To see more visit gaildawson.com 

and congratulations to Ms. Dawson on having her work appear in New American Painting 91, which is where I came across it.