THE SEATTLE TIMES
Two very different painters show that
abstractionism isn’t dead yet
By Gary Faigin
Special to The Seattle Times
“…Two very different, but extremely complementary, approaches to the challenge of making abstract art are on view at the G. Gibson Gallery this month, and both are engaging and satisfying in their own way. Robert C. Jones is a “classic” abstractionist, working in the tradition of earlier masters, particularly Matisse. Cable Griffith is more eclectic and contemporary, enthusiastically employing imagery from pop culture in his compositions.
The two painters share an affinity for the grid, a visible framework that serves as an armature for their inventions, and both make frequent references to landscape. Equally notable, both painters share the sort of positive, utopian spirit that animated the pioneer abstractionists in the period before Jackson Pollock and his colleagues conjured forth darker and more conflicted forces in the service of nonobjective art. Griffith and Jones see painting as a means to create a world that is more poetic and uplifting than our own…”