Donald Teskey
Paintings From The Red Mill

Donald Teskey
Paintings From The Red Mill
30 September ­ 23 October, 2003

In these paintings of rural Vermont between seasons, the fleeting, the mysterious, is made accessible and familiar. This work is visceral — Donald Teskey paints with knives — and spiritual. By this I mean it is informed by a profound experience of the world, a lively and sensual intelligence. And because it evokes the places where we have been alone and deeply alive, the series elicits a real fascination. Looking, our own memories are captured and retrieved.

Each painting is an exercise in measured exuberance. Nothing is still; everything breathes. The old bridge, the barn, the mill, are torqued by weather and wind. The stream is swollen and quickened with melting ice. What is expressed is not only the world’s beauty and mystery, but its dynamic nature. Light and shadow are accelerated.

These are paintings in a constant state of anticipation. They anticipate thaw, fog, sudden storms, sudden sun ­ things that exemplify Vermont in early spring. They dazzle the eye and set the mind to dreaming. They are as knowing as they are beautiful.

Rikki Ducornet
Vermont, August 2003