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Bryant Mill
On View
Not on view
Object number1991/2.64

Bryant Mill

Maker (American, 1927 - 2017)
Date1975
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 17 7/8 × 24 1/8 in. (45.4 × 61.3 cm)
frame: 19 5/8 × 20 3/4 × 1 3/8 in. (49.8 × 52.7 × 3.5 cm)
Credit LineGift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Stewart
Exhibition History"Perspectives on Place: Artists’ Visions of Michigan's Land and Lakes," KIA Nay Gallery (June 6 - Sept. 7, 2008). "Familiar Surroundings," KIA Long Gallery (Dec. 18, 2010 - Apr. 10, 2011).Label TextMarilyn Johnson’s view of Bryant Mill presents the abandoned industrial buildings as a flattened form, consisting of connected shapes and lines. The scene is the starting point for a painting that is more concerned with color, texture and shape. The viewer may consider whether the complex earth and aqua tones are a subtle invention of the artist or a replication of actual light and color. Johnson’s thick, rippled application of paint enlivens the surface of the pond and the canvas. In this 1975 painting, we can see Johnson’s early attraction to a scene’s geometry and abstract qualities. Kalamazoo architecture has long been an inspiration for a painterly vision that has stretched further toward abstraction in recent decades. Bryant Mill Pond, a former Allied Paper, Inc. property, was identified as a source of PCB contamination to Portage Creek in 1971 and remediated in 1998-99. David Lewis' Corporate Wasteland includes another artist’s perspective on Allied Paper buildings.