Review. john Brunetti. Dialoque Magazine 2003

THE EMOTIONAL EDGE OF BRIX-THOMSEN´S WORK IS HEIGHTENED BY HER EPHEMERAL COMPOSITIONS THAT BALANCE PURE ABSTRACTION WITH ILLUSIVE IMAGERY.

The viscosity of coloured pigment and its ability to convey the ethereal essence of light has long hypnotized painters from Turner to Rothko. From saturated to muted hues, the painter`s palette retains the mysterious aura of an alchemist`s laboratory where solid materials are magically turned into translucent gases.

Pia Brix-Thomsen is a comtempory Danish Painter who is one such alchemist.The first U.S. show of this 39 years old artist submerges the viewer intonuminous worlds of evaporating mists and dissappearing horizons. While modest in size, her square canvases`shimmering surfaces possess an infinite sense of depth that resonate with a range of emotions that is surprising for the understated nature of her vocabulary.Many artist are able to build subtle transparencies of colour through oil glazes or the us of oil and wax in encaustic. but Brix-Thomsen´s work is unusual in that she is able to achieve diaphanous layers by using acrylic paint and a vigorous scraping process. Her surfaces are an unusua ljuxtaposition of numerous contrasting tonalities of related colours-reds, ochres, rusts, maroons, olive-greens, lemon-yellows – built upand sanded down.Her resulting surfaces are palimpsests of ghostly stains and abrasions that appear embedded in the surfaces of her canvases.This quality is an integral part of her work, lending an age and weight to her paintings that suggets the encrusted walls of ancient cities. As a result, viewers feel they are looking at a surface that has been marked by time, while at the same instance that surface appears to be evaporating before their eyes. This is a curious phenomenon that Brix-Thomsen uses effectively throughout her work to ensure that her vibrantly colored paintings do not become too pretty.
The emotional edge of Brix-Thomsen´s work is heightened by her ephemeral compositions that balance pure abstraction with illusive imagery. Enigmatic pictographs are scraped onto and painted on the top of her acrylic washes, creating the residue of a culture trapped between the past and the present.Ceremonial rings, coills, and ellipses painted in a glowing spectrum of red, orange, and yellow beckon the viewer to join a ritual whose meaning remains a mystery. Optically, these marks provide a landmark for the viewers to find their bearings in otherwise hrizonless realms.
As result, Brix-Thomsen implies that perhaps our forgotten beliefs remain a necessity for guiding us through landsccapes whose topography is ultimately shaped by our own fears.Through her surfaces emphasize material idiosyncrasies, Brix-Thomsen´s paintings, at times, offer the potential for spiritual trancendence.

John Brunetti. Dialoque Magazine July/ August 2003