Town of Wendell, Massachusetts

The Wendell Free Library begins the New Year with “Asana” an exhibition of work by Christine Texiera of Wendell. This show consists of twenty-one oil on paper paintings presenting a series of yoga positions against simple, bold backgrounds.

Christine has spent over ten years studying the figure in life drawing classes and as many involved with yoga. She has been teaching yoga at the Wendell Library for the past three years. In this show she combines both interests while experimenting with painting with oil on paper.

Ms. Texiera writes in her resume, “This body of work combines a love of the figure and love of yoga. There is something both solid and graceful about people in yoga poses [asanas]. A sense of peace that is pregnant with breath and indicative of the movement that has come before it, ready to birth not only a change in the body but also in the spirit of the practitioner.” She goes on to explain that “People’s reaction to the paintings often are based on identification with their own possibility to be in that pose...” They think, “‘I can’t do that’ or “I think I can do that.’” This reaction establishes a unique personal connection between the viewer and the work.

These paintings are principally about gesture, about action that is balanced literally in each yoga position and visually in each piece. The figures are presented full center against a simple, almost abstract background delineating a floor plane and background wall. Each yoga position has a specific name which describes that pose, and the sources for these are from experienced yoga practitioners. Christine combines her convincing rendition of the figures with bold areas of pure color enhancing the drama of the work.

The color combinations are sensitively worked out. Colors in the figures are used descriptively, delineating muscle structure, and modeling the texture and folds of fabric. In contrast the background areas are flat. The simple, yet dramatic, background provides a foil for the foreground gesture. For the most part the colors in the floor plane are darker than those in the wall. This treatment echoes our experience with landscape and serves to anchor the figures more firmly to the ground.

In the largest painting, “On to Koundinyasana”, the warm flesh tones of the figure contrast sharply with the dark green ground while the green in the pants does the same against the pink wall plane. While the diagonals formed by the legs are visually very dynamic, both the position of the torso and the color composition contain the activity. The resulting composition, like the others in this exhibition, present energy in equilibrium.

Christine has exhibited her work at the Southwick Library, in a group show, “Stimulus”, presented by a group of artists focusing on the human figure and participated in a collaborative show, “Digital Dumbo” at the Mastel Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.

Ms. Texiera can be reached by phone, 978-544-3060 and by email, .

Reasonably priced prints are also available for sale at the library.

Visit www.etsy.com/shop/ctexiera to see more of Ms. Texiera’s work.

This exhibition runs from January 1 until the end of February 2012 in the Herrick Room at the Wendell Free Library. Library hours: Tuesday 3-6; Wednesday 10-8; Saturday 9:30-3:30.