Review

"Still Life with Bosc Pears", Oil on Canvas.

Paula Hauser Leffel
Still Paintings

10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Corridor Art Space
4041 Mill Street
Kansas City, MO
816.931.6655

Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. daily
Runs through: June 6

Artist's site: http://www.paulahauserleffel.com
Gallery site: http://www.gouldevans.com

In her excellent collection of recipes and essays, A Well-Seasoned Appetite, Molly O'Neill cites French gastronomic icon François de la Varenne on the subject of pears:

The pear is the grandfather of the apple, its poor relation, a fallen aristocrat, the man at arms of our domains, which once in our humid land, lived lonely and lordly, preserving the memory of its prestige by its haughty comportment.

In other, less flowery words, pears are a challenge to cook with and not as rewarding to eat out of hand as apples are.

This isn't the space to debate culinary issues (even though there are few fall tastes more pleasurable than a ripe Comice or Bosc). Pears are a featured topic today simply because Paula Hauser Leffel is so fond of  depicting them in oil.

Still Paintings, her portion of the current exhibit at the Corridor Art Space, is heavy on the genus Pyrus -- most often placed next to apples, although other fruits also make appearances.

There's no special significance to Leffel's choice; apples and pears, she says, are "just easy to get year-round." Neither is there any competition between the botanical relatives. Set off by painted cloth and crockery, they share their two-dimensional space wonderfully.

(Speaking of earthenware, the careful observer will note that the same bowl appears in two paintings. You'll have to find them.)

As with fruit, so with art. There's never a sense that Leffel's work is jostling for room with the other collection in this show: Street Photography, works by her husband, Rusty Leffel. His work brackets hers without pressing in -- or being pushed aside by the paintings.

Paula Hauser Leffel's slightly impressionist style enhances the curves not only of the edible elements of her pieces, but of the supporting elements as well. Each component blurs almost imperceptibly into the whole, the tiny loss of realism more than repaid by an increase in homey, rustic warmth.

For example, Still Life with Bosc Pears -- the painting above -- conveys not so much a sense of physical reproduction as of mental reconstruction. It's a once-removed memory in oil and canvas, the physical tablescape minutely altered but the emotional impact intact.

Visual art is a lot like cooking; care and skill will be rewarded. Leffel displays both in these Still Paintings, and the result is good enough to to devour with the eyes.

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