Style Weekly
The litany includes drug abuse, reckless spending, grainy sex tapes and tired comebacks. It seems there's no other end for such innocent beginnings.
Then there's Eve Plumb.
For years Plumb was charged with one of the most difficult roles an actress could play. Her talent on “The Brady Bunch” was to remain neutral — though passive-aggressive — as that of the middle sister, Jan Brady. Although not as cute as the youngest, Cindy, and never as mature and sexy as Marcia, Jan had to find her way in a household overrun with dominant personalities. She learned how to remain in view even when there were so many distractions.
Now Plumb has taken her ability to emphasize the underdog to new places. She offers it through paintings.
In her show, “Kaleidoscope,” at Chasen Galleries, self-taught artist Plumb works with oil paints on canvas to portray objects often left unnoticed because of their unremarkable nature. Her images are simple in their subject matter — plainly simple. The scenes are painted to emphasize the interplay of object and light. Common objects such as coffee cups, fruit, chairs, ketchup bottles and saltshakers are the focus of her work and reveal an inner life unlike any would have guessed from the public figure who grew up on television.
“I sometimes describe my art as ‘spontaneous still life,'” Plumb writes on her Web page. “Whenever I see a likely subject, everything stops and I take photographs. This holds the moment in time until I can paint it.”
She says she doesn't stage her painted scenes. They come from her daily travels and an obviously idiosyncratic perspective. But if these paintings are scenes from the life of a former child star, where are the parties filled with debaucheries, public spectacles, gold-plated toilets, white tigers, closets full of shoes, rehab day trips or mock romantic affairs?
You won't find any of that here. Lindsey Lohan can't paint.
“Kaleidoscope” by Eve Plumb is on display until May 14 at Chasen Galleries, 3554 W. Cary St. For information call 804-204-1048 or visit ChasenGalleries.com.
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