Intriguing Shapes In Show at Sharon’s Hotchkiss Library

I imagine that Janet Block paints quickly: brushing, scraping, altering until she is satisfied. And I suspect she is a tough judge of her own art, one who discards work that does not meet her standards, the same rigorous standards she brought to positions on Wall Street and as a management consultant. Most often she succeeds, at least in work now on exhibit at Sharon’s Hotchkiss Library. Almost all the paintings in Sharon are of pears or flowers or sides of barns. All have interesting shapes in common, from the curves of the fruit to the geometrical slabs of barn sides and the riotous free form of petals and blossoms. Block’s pears come in many sizes. Some are so large that a section of the fruit fills the picture. In others a whole fruit is rendered, while in some — particularly two pears “facing” each other, one to my eye more feminine than the other, that may remind you of Peter Woytuck’s famous spooning pears bronze sculpture — there are multiples. Block’s rendering of pear colors, a gentle mix of pale green, red and yellow, is good, frequently superb. Somehow in her best fruit pictures she achieves a sort of glow, as if they have been polished by a green grocer. The small pear pictures are rougher with the weave of canvas showing through. Flowers from Block are all about drama. The first two pictures in the show, a tulip and what I presume is a lily that somehow resembles a crab, are painted in black, gray and darkest blue. The tulip is laid on a dark undercoat, the other flower on white. Where the paint is not impasto or even somewhat thick, the weave of the canvas gives additional interest. They are commanding pictures. Elsewhere there is what resembles a floppy black-eyed susan, its petals like tentacles in white, gray and black. Stunning stalks of yarrow stand side by side, like walking sticks with unusual heads. They, too, are in black, gray and white; and they are very good. Block’s barns are really sides of the buildings and their roofs. Geometric slabs, rectangles or trapezoids, meet on the canvas, each element painted in a different color. At their best, they convey a sense of volume, sturdiness, time. Sometimes the colors are realistic, sometimes fanciful. In their smaller versions, and there are several upstairs, they may remind you of the shapes of houses and hotels in Monopoly.The Art of Janet Block continues at Hotchkiss Library through Jan. 31. The library is on the Green in Sharon and is open daily. Call 860-364-5041 or go to www.hotchkisslibrary.org for information.