BY SARAH SCHMERIER
SALANDER O’REILLY GALLERIES
AUG. 1999
Anne Peretz is a student of nature, specifically the sort found in Truro, Cape Cod. Located near land’s end, where the Atlantic mercilessly pounds one shore while Cape Cod Bay gently laps the other. Truro has inspired many an artist (Hopper was a resident, as is Peretz). In the lion’s share of the 18 oil works on display here, Peretz explores her love of the place’s austerity and abundance.
These pieces are concerned less with verisimilitude than with meditating on nature and its moods. Horse Leach Pond II describes an estuary in dark, marshy greens; a bright sky lights it from behind, adding an aura of mystery. In Truro Dune, thatches of Cape foliage are almost indistinguishable from the rocks to which they cling. In this sort of clime, the work seems to say, beauty is born of survival.
Best here are the triptychs, which possess a cinematic feel when read from left to right. In one, a cliff-like outcropping rises dramatically against the ocean, starting below the horizon and ending above it. In another, a high, grassy dune slopes gradually downward to reveal a tiny wind-battered fence set against a massive grey sky wet with salt air. In person, these vistas are almost too breathtaking to take in at a glance, Peretz translates them into quiet nature walks recorded with a wide-angle lens.
These works are indebted to Cezanne in their texture and to Chinese painting in their composition. Peretz, however, is creating her own tradition here, revisiting the landscape she loves and finding endless inspiration within it.