SANTA FE, NM.- Charlotte Jackson Fine Art is presenting a solo exhibition of new work, Painting the Unseen, by Edith Baumann on view through April 25. The gallery is located in the Railyard Arts District at 554 South Guadalupe Street.

Blue that moves. Orange that vibrates. Red that enters the eye and plunges straight down into the gut. Color is alive in the paintings of Edith Baumann. And yet it is not just color that is so alluring in her work. What keeps us riveted to the spot, keeps us looking, keeps us contemplating, is the intimation of the unseen.

The title of Edith Baumann’s first solo exhibition at Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Painting the Unseen, hints at more than Baumann’s meditative painting process. The unseen in Baumann’s work also incorporates the multiple layers of various colors which combine to create an illusion of monochrome. Beneath a blue plane are a riot of different hues which create the depth and complexity which is so tantalizing in Baumann’s canvases.

Subtle shades, hints of highlight, the color plane which forms the backdrop for Baumann’s bars of contrasting color, is slowly revealed to the viewer to be anything but static. The bars of color, often a dynamic contrast of warm and cool, but sometimes a more understated contrast of tones, do not so much float as nestle within the dominant colorfield.

This sense of balance between opposites, of harmony in opposition, infuses all aspects of Baumann’s work. The bars, with their distinct and yet almost semi-permeable edges, are arranged with a unique combination of precision and grace. As Baumann has said, she seeks to “tap into something that is larger than me but includes me.” Baumann notes how patterns within nature are repeated over and over, creating connection between them, connection between things, and creating a larger collective pattern. This idea of patterns within patterns comes across clearly in Baumann’s work. In the presence of a painting by Baumann, the viewer gets the sense that what is visible before her is only a small piece, like a fractal, of a larger pattern that goes on extending well beyond the edges of the canvas. The bars, with their vertical and horizontal patterns, their intricate spacing, go on and on, creating a larger work, unseen.