Abstracting Sea and Sky

The paint blooms as it touches the water-laden surface. With skill and patience, David Dewey runs his large wash brush across the double-elephant-sized sheet, spreading color to the edges of the page. Despite the sheet's enormous dimensions, the vivid blue adheres to the surface evenly, without betraying the strokes that laid them there. Soon this even rectangle of pure color becomes a panoramic seascape faithfully depicting the Maine coastline, and yet the new work can also be appreciated more abstractly?as a meditation on geometry and as a celebration of the way in which light creates the miracle of color.

Dewey's most recent work strikes a harmonious balance between realistically depicting the natural world and abstractly reflecting upon it. While remaining faithful to the specific inspiring scene, the artist clearly revels in exploring the nonrepresentational figures and shapes from which it is composed. "The abstract in painting can be described as either objective or nonobjective," he explains. "It is the formal grammar or language in painting used to express and form ideas. In object-based work such as my own, it is the genesis and framework of the piece, whereas in nonobjective work, it itself is the subject of the piece. In either case, it is inseparable from the image."

In his comprehensive and sumptuously illustrated guide to watercolor painting, The Watercolor Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist (Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, New York), Dewey examines the process of creating a formal structure for an organic composition out of abstract forms. "To represent a subject in watercolor, you must peel away its descriptive surface to see its abstract structure," he observes. "This can be done by identifying patterns of light and dark on the surfaces of objects and letting those patterns form a compositional scheme in your mind's eye."

In House and Barn, a beautiful graded wash brings a lit sky down to a distant strip of purple shoreline before illuminating the sea and land in the middle- and foreground. At a distance, one sees a harmony of color and abstract forms. Only upon closer inspection of its details, such as the minute wisps of grass that delicately rise against the edge of the house, are we reminded that this is a realistic representation of an actual location. "Shapes are very important in that painting," Dewey says emphatically. "Geometry is the dominant force. The information is very understated; it's distilled to create and explore space."

Dewey's recent works share this approach. Focusing on landscapes at their most essential, they evoke the intangible concepts of atmosphere, memory, space, and time, and require a marriage of realism and abstraction. Day's End, for example, is equal parts Edward Hopper and Mark Rothko, a seeming blend of Abstract Expressionism with American realism akin to overlaying Hopper's Early Sunday Morning with Rothko's White on Blue Background. Accordingly, Day's End exemplifies Dewey's talent for uniting what have long been considered mutually exclusive approaches to painting. Rather than devoting himself wholly to one school, Dewey focuses instead on the seminal idea that he wishes to communicate through his work. "After all these years I don't need to think as much when I work," he says. "It's intuitive. The way I build things up, use color and washes?the painting either fails or I move on. I don't like it when it fails, but I just don't worry about it. You have to feel positive about the seed, the idea you
are pursuing."

Dewey has found the natural characteristics of watercolor ideal for rendering his meditations on Maine's coastal scenery. "You put watercolor on paper and it moves, whereas in other media you put it down and move it," he says. "Watercolor floats in space and creates atmosphere. There is a psychological dimension to it right off the bat." Such atmosphere, that "psychological dimension," is ever present in the structural details of Dewey's best work. As the Maine house in Day's End balances the last remaining warmth of waning daylight with the coolness of ensuing night, so too does it balance the simplicity of its geometry against the precision of its lines and architectural details. "I see it as a landscape of light rather than as a building," the artist says. Multiple rectangles of color reflect light and serve to draw in the viewer's gaze, while the details of door, window, cornice, and mailbox evoke an emotive suggestion of home?and its tranquil sanctity at sunset.

There is no pretense, no ostentation in Dewey's work; rather, his technical mastery always serves the idea or the spirit of his piece. "Watercolor pushed my development as an artist," Dewey explains, "not just in the technical respect, but in the way in which I formed my ideas about painting. The skills I developed really evolved out of the ideas I wanted to pursue. I teach my students that they can't think of the finished product right away; they first have to work through the abstract steps, the ideas that take them to the end product. Techniques applied with skill must be influenced by color and be part of the structural development of the painting, but they must never be exclusive or become the most important part of the painting. To do so would be like handwriting trying to serve as literature."

Working in his studio, Dewey plumbs the depths of his memory in search of the right scene to depict. In his mind's eye he combs over images of houses, beachscapes, and waterfronts that he has painted repeatedly while out on location. Within his studio he then enjoys the freedom to employ difficult techniques that are impossible to perform in the field, as well as the freedom from direct contact with the subject. These dual liberties allow the artist to delve within himself to isolate the underlying spirit or idea he wishes to capture, resulting in works such as Sky and Sea: Summer Haze, in which Dewey renders the intangible palpable?and where atmosphere and mood hang as heavy as the moisture in the sky.