EVENT: Camden Falls Gallery presents “PAS DE DEUX”, a new exhibit featuring Aline Ordman and Taddeus Retz. The show will open on Thursday, 5 PM September 16, 2021 in conjunction with Camden’s “Third Thursday Art Walk” and will run through Oct. 6 2021
Camden Falls Gallery is honored to host a very special show which can be enjoyed as painterly choreography between artists Aline Ordman and Taddeus Retz.
PAS DE DEUX (French, noun)
A dance for two people, typically a man and a woman.
Ordman and Retz both derive energy and inspiration from painting en plein air, where the visual complexities of the natural world offer up endless challenges.
A master pastel and oil painter, Ordman stresses the analytical elements of shape, value, and color saturation when she is teaching, asking her students to set aside pre conceptions of the objects or scene they are beholding and to concentrate on the negative and positive shapes and tonal planes that cause that object or scene to emerge. Ordman is an alchemist when it comes to transforming those abstract “bones” into a finished composition rich with layered pigment and movement.
Although she has held annual teaching workshops in France and Italy, she always is drawn back to a small village in Vermont called Peacham. For her it is the “Tuscany of New England.” Her work from that bucolic land of rolling hills and small farms speaks volumes of her passion for the pastoral and respect for those who work in concert with nature.
Whenever Ordman paints figures in a landscape she states, “I want to describe my vision - what hit me at the time I saw the scene. It’s all about the gesture, and body language.
Taddeus Retz is from upstate New York and has spend many hours analysing the work of painters that he admires from master portrait artists like John Singer Sargent, to the naturalist realism of Winslow Homer and George Bellows, whose genius evoked and appreciation of working class Americans and their daily struggles with the tumultuous sea and equally frenetic city life.
It is rare to find a young artist with as much self discipline as Retz. Self taught doesn’t even begin to describe the rigorous constraints, challenges, and perimeters that he creates to force himself to work with fresh techniques and subject matter. Absorbing the old and new masters and learning from them enlivens his own originality and acts as a catalyst for experimentation.
Retz states, “I don’t think of myself as trying to emulate anymore. Sometimes it is a song or a sculpture that ignites a creative, free and passionate emotion in me. Paintings inspire me because of the infiinte routes that can be taken to get a successful image.”
In Their Own Words….
ALINE ORDMAN, “Susan’s Garden”, Pastel, 16” X 20”
This painting encompassed all my most important key elements, color, shapes, design, passion and a hero. My paintings which have a “hero”…a main character that the rest of the painting supports, are my most successful.
I start with a love of the subject matter. Not a gardener myself, I have a great appreciation for the abundance of colors that join together and create a natural beauty. Taming this cacophony is the job of the artist.
I knew starting out that this could have become a mess…too many clashing colors and no focus. The bigger, simpler and less intense colors of the background trees created a barrier and a support for the very intense colors of the flowers. The shape of the walkway and its shadows as well as those in the grasses guide the viewers’ eyes to the final hero. When I put the tiny white light on the vase at the end of it, I felt it all came together.
The success of this painting is in creating the feel of a big colorful garden but allowing the viewer to also walk through it.
TAD RETZ, “Acadia”, Oil on Canvas, 36” x 48”
"Acadia" is a good example of what I have been trying to strive for as of late. At this larger size for me, 36x48 inches, I was able to work the textures and broken color in a way that is new and more effective than before.
While striving for that balance of abstract and realism, I found that the possibilities were greater at this greater size. My use of outlining has always been experimental since I started applying it to my work about a year ago and at this size and with this specific piece.
I'm very pleased with how it affects the three dimensional nature. Something that would typically flatten a form, at first thought, is doing the complete opposite in this painting.
We Paint Maine. Camden Falls Gallery is located alongside beautiful Camden Harbor, on the public landing. We offer a rich diversity of original artwork in contemporary styles, focusing on the natural beauty of midcoast Maine and its nautical hertiage. The gallery is open daily from 10am to 6pm. For more information, please call 207-470-7027 or visit www.camdenfallsgallery.com.
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