ARON WIESENFELD
What Lies Beyond
Aron Wiesenfeld’s paintings reveal themselves over time—both to the viewer and to the artist in the process of his creating them.
He approaches the boundary between the tangible world and the realm of the spirit that “dwells in the dark corners,” he explains. “Either you feel it or you don’t… I look at a Hopper and see the metaphysical. Most people experience the materialistic beautiful light.” His paintings suggest non-tangible states. Their mystery draws the viewer in to contemplate the subject matter and, perhaps, to explore what lies behind it.
His latest work will be shown at Arcadia Contemporary in Pasadena, California, May 11 to 26. The works range from the intimate 9-by-12-inch The Greeting to the monumental 64-by-104-inch The Bridge.
In The Greeting, a boy greets a young girl dejectedly sitting bareback on a horse on the bank of a stream. The boy has a staff as if he could be a shepherd who could lead her to a safer place. They are at the edge of a primeval wood while in the distance power lines carry electricity to a less bucolic place, powered by water at a less tranquil source.
Wiesenfeld also does charcoal drawings such as The Game in which two girls play a game by lamp light in a tent. “You can achieve an atmosphere in that medium you can’t get in paint, similar to a black-and-white photo,” he says. The glaring light from the source casts the girl’s shadows against the interior of the tent that
shows on the exterior through the translucency of the canvas and lights up an area just outside—a study in the materiality of light suggesting the metaphysical that the artist feels. His drawings and paintings open doors whether or not we care to pass through. He is fond of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats who wrote, “People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end
Arcadia Contemporary 39 E. Colorado Boulevard • Pasadena, CA 91105 • (626) 486-2018 • www.arcadiacontemporary.com