Beryl Landau's solo show at the Newmark Gallery on Post Street tackles the cityscape, or urban landscape, in a beautiful and engaging way. Historically and literally, the term "landscape" implies some type of natural or organic focus, with perhaps an idyllic, Arcadian element thrown in. The artist who chooses to depict city scenes and the unabashed reality of a metropolis must perhaps engage with this fact. Landau's scenes of San Francisco, although largely dominated by the geometric panorama of the built city, seem to retain an organic, living quality that make them both relevant, insightful, and attractive. Landau's use of a bright, clear palette of blues, oranges, pinks and whites remind us of those sunny, sparkling days in San Francisco where the beauty of the environment seems to transform the urban sprawl into a seductive, glowing animal.

The liveliness of her paintings also seem to be indebted to her interest in the juxtaposition of new construction with historic, well-known areas of San Francisco. In Fence with Ballpark, the construction in the foreground is alive with activity and potential as it stands against the landmark in the background. In these types of scenes, Landau also comments upon the landscape itself: an obliteration of the natural land and accommodating it with the new use city planning and mapping have deemed worthwhile.

With reference again to her cheerful coloring, Landau's perspective seems more positive. Her painting Clouds Over Freeway from 2008 shows white omnipresent cumulus clouds looming on ¾ of the canvas over the small freeway as cars go along their hurried way. This painting does not allude to a negative relationship between the cloudscape above with the cityscape below. Both seem two sides of the same coin, two scenes to appreciate of one world. Rather than symbolize the metropolis as dismal, depressing, an unfit place for any positive growth for humanity, Landau's vision of the city is refreshing and vibrant, idealistic and light..

-- Monique T. Willms

(*Images, from top to bottom: Beryl Landau, San Francisco: The Changing City, February 27 - March 22, 2008; Newmark Gallery, New Urban, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20", courtesy of the Artist and Newmark Gallery, San Francisco.  Beryl Landau, San Francisco: The Changing City, February 27 - March 22, 2008; Newmark Gallery, 3-D, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 57 x 57", courtesy of the Artist and Newmark Gallery, San Francisco.   Beryl Landau, San Francisco: The Changing City, February 27 - March 22, 2008; Newmark Gallery, Fence with Ballpark, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20", courtesy of the Artist and Newmark Gallery, San Francisco. All images courtesy Newmark Gallery)