Beth King has a keen sense of color, and her compositions are related to artistic trends begun during the presidential administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. The main intrigue in the 20 paintings created for her current solo exhibition is her use of mixed chromatic grays and saturated versus adulterated hues.

Beth King; "The Pleasure of Gray," (N.D.).

Acrylic on canvas; 24 x 24 inches. Image

courtesy of the artist and the Visual Arts

Program of the San Diego Public Library.

Being that the square is such a strong primary shape, it is difficult for many artists to arrange compositions that do not appear beholden or restricted by the rigid geometry of a square. King is in a perpetual competition with the strong square shape of her canvases. In her exhibition at the Earl & Birdie Taylor Library Gallery, the imagery in Ms. King’s canvases consist of acrylic-painted abstractions that use a vocabulary of flattened and black outlined cartoon derived shapes. Her work is indebted as much to the early 20th-century European objectives of formalist balance and color as it is to the traditions of the mid-20th century Chicago artists, such as Elizabeth Murray and Jim Nutt; to the mainstream Pop Art artists, such as Roy Lichtenstein; and to the late figurative paintings of Philip Guston. Although, King's work is aesthetically polite and too well behaved, seeming kind of stuffy as compared to paintings of Murray, Nutt, Lichtenstein, and Guston.

Beth King; "Freeze," (N.D.). Acrylic on

canvas; 36 x 36 inches. Image

courtesy of the artist and the Visual Arts

Program of the San Diego Public Library.

Two of King’s canvases come together nicely, though. Her impastoed brushwork and delightfully awkward Guston-like shapes in the painting entitled, “Pleasure of Gray,” unite muted blue, orange, and red that set well amongst other tones and shades of blue-, mauve-, and yellow-based chromatic grays. Another fun canvas, called “Freeze,” has a white cartoon callout-like shape overlapping a dappled blue-purple dripping shield shape that are both painted in front of a brown branch-like shape stretching across the canvas. Behind all of this are shades of greens, purples, and yellows. "Freeze" is both fun in shape and complex in color. Many of the other compositions in this exhibition feel too self-conscious and appear to lack the spontaneity that one would expect to accompany King's vocabulary of whimsical, outlined cartoon-like shapes.