Artist Tracy Pennington makes large mosaic murals in an Abstract Figurative style, and her Springs Park mural in LaGrange, Kentucky is a good example.
Tracy’s specific style of Abstract Figurative art is based patterns and textures, which are the mosaic medium’s intrinsic strength.
After all, it’s difficult to arrange tiles without the mind seeing different repeating patterns that could be made.
Pattern and Texture
I’ve noticed that I appreciate abstract art best when it is based on the intrinsic properties of a medium, such as paint’s natural tendency to drip and run, instead of when it is based on an absurd amount of precision or labor that says nothing about the medium.
I think that’s why I like Tracy’s murals so much: they leverage what mosaic is good at.
Tracy’s figures are made from swatches of repetitive patterns, and the repetitive patterns suggest motion as they lead the eye.
This gives Tracy’s mosaics a kinetic energy.
They are also colorful and vibrant.
Springs Park Mural
Tracy’s Springs Park Mural is reminiscent of the later works of Matisse, except that the figurative elements are built from a collage of patterns instead of a collage of color fields.
Tracy had a major health crisis three weeks before the installation of the mosaic and opening of the park. After a lengthy recovery, Tracy installed the mosaic two years later.
Tracy says that the buildings in the design are an exact outline of the farm buildings that were on the site of Springs Park in the 1800s.
Springs Park is a children’s playground and splash pad, and mosaic is facing the splash pad.
Tracy says that the kids love the mosaic. and I believe her. I suspect that not even adults can walk past this mosaic without touching it or getting lost in the patterns.
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