Pola Carmen

It is a grid, a maze, a knit. Yet for Pola Carmen, it is none of these things; she sees only lines, going one way and the other, an endless sequence of x’s and y’s, a drawing without intent, in short. For fifteen years she has drawn freehand lines in soft pastel or oil stick on primed canvases stretched like a bow, “as resonant as drum skin.” On this uniform background, ranging from gray to café-au-lait, her weave trembles and tilts, deliberately “askew.” Geranium red, Prussian blue, antique white, lemon yellow, Chinese orange… Each color, singular and either bright or muted depending on her mood, strives not to distract the eye, which, caught in the net of floating threads, always finds its way through the narrow meshes. For Pola Carmen gently provides an exit, allowing the eye to wander at leisure before slipping through a gap opened here or there, rarely in the center. The placement of these voids follows no logic, nor do these interlacings mimic any real motif or known object. Pola Carmen acknowledges only one influence: the restrained and systematic art of Pierrette Bloch, Agnes Martin, Brice Marden, Georges Noël, and Marinette Cueco. These great monochromes, whose edges retain the memory of her successive gestures, she calls Possible. This simple word, denoting what can be done or can occur, suits her effortless work, left open to the free interpretation of each viewer.

Virginie Huet