Viewpoint

For a quarter century my home and studio, “Viewpoint”, has been on a small island south of Boston. With the historic North River on one side, the South River on the other and Massachusetts Bay ahead, the island is connected to the mainland by a short causeway. The village of Marshfield Hills, as the name suggests, is a landscape of marshes, fields and hills. Founded in 1640 as a part of the original Plymouth Colony, the town is rich in history and natural beauty.

The woods, meadows, fields, marshes, beaches, riverbanks, ponds and sky provide an ever changing panorama of nature. Each vista has unique characteristics that change with the seasons, weather and light. Within this small geographic area I am provided with an almost infinite variety of possibilities.

This exhibition, also called Viewpoint, was chosen to reference both my physical vantage point and the way in which I see my world. It is an elegy, a lament for a vanishing landscape. The distant power lines, fences, footprints and empty benches serve as metaphors for the intrusion of man in nature.

As I worked on the large format Viewpoint series, I also made a small concertina bound book. Focusing on the environment and our impact upon it, this small, enclosed, intimate book format allows me to research projects, ask questions and explore my responses.

Crossing the boundaries between large-scale mixed media pieces and artist books, my work is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue – a visible exploration of meaning.

Layering light
Reviewing the exhibition at Judi Rotenberg Gallery on Newbury Street, Boston, Cate McQuaid said: “Dorothy Simpson Krause is one of Boston’s pioneers of digital art. She founded the Computer Arts Center at Massachusetts College of Art and cofounded the collaborative Digital Atelier . Her trademark is her willingness to experiment with technique and process; it seems she’s always doing something new. At the same time, the content of her work grows satisfyingly sparer, leaving more and more room for a viewer’s imagination.

“Viewpoint,” her gorgeous new show at Judi Rotenberg Gallery, features images of the marshes and beaches near her home in Marshfield — contemplative places for her, and fragile environments. She prints photographs on Plexiglas and mounts them over paintings, over panels coated with silver leaf, or over aluminum. There’s often layering: “The Shed Out Back” sports a photo of a red shed printed on one side of the plexi; Krause has printed images from an abstract painting, looking like branches, on the reverse side. It is mounted over a white panel.

With translucent and reflective materials, it’s as if the artist is layering light. Walk past “Gate to the Dunes,” a photo mounted over silver leaf, and the experience of looking at it changes as shadow and light waffle over the surface. Krause imparts the idea that nothing — the gate, the dunes, the shed — is solid, and everything is a mere shimmer in the imagination of the universe.”

Cate McQuaid, Art Critic, The Boston Globe

A PDF catalog of the series may be viewed and/or downloaded. An article by Sheryl Seyfert in the March 2007 issue of South Shore Living magazine, “Intrusion Meets Infusion”, focuses on this series. Photos are by Jack Foley.