Blue Rig

Cryptic yet familiar, Bruce Dean’s "Blue Rig" has a mysterious and other-worldly allure that maintains a connection with the figurative through the inflection of soft natural colors. As Dean aptly states, the work is an "abstract seascape”; it realizes its maritime appearance by semi-translucent washes of oil that transition into more thickly painted sections. The fluid oscillation of paint density creates an illusion of movement suggestive of roiling ocean waves. Furthermore, the ocean is among the most tonally complex natural phenomena. Like stones, the sea is a comingling of different colors that can somehow be noticed but not distinguished. The constant blending of blues, greens, ghostly reflections of moonlight, and dancing golden reflections of sunlight become one. Still, indistinguishable instances of individual colors jump out at us like partial memories with forgotten origins. "Blue Ring" captures all these ineffable aquatic properties in its inscrutable layers.