“If Wordsworth had been a visual artist instead of a poet, he might well have created collages very much like these delights by Lucy Nurkse. His poem, “Daffodils”, comes to mind, with its dancing, head-tossing blossoms and its reference to “that inner eye” filling the heart with pleasure.

Such innocent delight in the simple pleasures of life are all too rare in present-day visual art, and Nurkse finds them, often in the city, with its rich tapestry of humankind, enjoying the activities we tend to take for granted or overlook. In bold simple shapes fashioned of textured or patterned papers, set off by large areas of flat color, she almost carves the gesture of form.

Achieving the flatness so prized by the Cubists and their Asian inspiration, the Japanese woodcut artists of the 19th century, Nurkse adds a sense of sun and brilliant light that bathes the surface and enriches the palpable space of each work. A geometric underpinning holds each collage in check, but in a way so subtle it often eludes the causal viewer. Reference to the work of Bearden can be discovered in both this geometric homage and in the variety of surface textures and color harmonies she employs, but these works would never be taken for those of any other artist. Nurkse has indeed identified a special niche in the two-dimensional lexicon and has made it all beautifully her own.”

Cynthia Maris Dantzic
Professor of Art, Long Island University

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