Dawn

Told in a challenging but ultimately successful palette of soft reddish hues, Gina Werfel’s Dawn is an intricately painted evocation of nature. Traces of embroidery intersperse the cascading passages of oil like the illusions the rising sun creates before the eyes of its beholder. Ironically, these phantom forms ground the painting in the figurative world and prevent viewers from losing themselves in the enigmatic abstraction. The soft, central wash of pink pigment gives way, on all sides, to gestural mark-making that extends outwards and drips down the canvas in long thin veins. The instances of blue and green are of tantamount importance to the success of the painting as they separate and offset the predominant scheme of red and beige colors. Dawn rises from the canvas with a soft warmth that lights up any room.