Statement

To describe Poogy Bjerklie as a painter who works from observation is accurate, as far as it goes, but the statement is also somewhat misleading. The acute perceptions upon which her paintings depend have been completely internalized, transformed, and used freely. Bjerklie’s mysterious, intimate landscapes appear to be about places she knows well — almost certainly in her native Maine – filtered through memory and all-but transubstantiated in the process. At once dreamy and precise, her looming trees, moody skies and evocative reflections are completely convincing but apparently ephemeral. Everything seems about to dissolve in mist or to disappear if the moon goes behind a cloud. From a distance, these economical images, with their subdued colors and broad, soft-edged forms, can remind us of 19th century Romantic views of nature. From a closer viewpoint, they become entirely contemporary — minimal gatherings of loose, generous strokes and scrapes, energetically disposed on weathered boards. Only when we step away do these rough patches of light and dark become powerful suggestions of remembered landscapes, translated into a nearly abstract language of stroke and gesture. The best of Bjerklie’s evocative views recall Denis Diderot’s description of the work of his friend, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, written, astonishingly, in 1765: “…one can’t make things out from close up, while as one moves away the object coalesces and finally resembles nature; and sometimes it affords as much pleasure from close up as from a distance.” This approach may not be as radical today as it was in the 18th century, but Bjerklie’s strongest, eye-testing works make it clear that it can still provoke intriguing, poetic pictures.

- Karen Wilkin