Masae Uezumi's paintings re-present familiar urban views in a new light. Each icon-like painting that the artist produces, captures a sing1e subject. These separate paintings can be combined to create a larger grouping of elements --- a modular urban theater of juxtaposition. Like the separate building material that she depicts: bricks, wood, window panes --- the combined paintings produce a larger construction, one that incorporates the artist's interior. Her depictions of doors, windows and fragments of nature, are a gentle personal view, of an impersonal urban world.

         One looks simultaneously at, into, and out of her architecture, which makes for an interesting view indeed. Some of the windows are open and some are shut. Like snapshots of her mind, the artist has re-formed architecture to build a familiar yet slightly disorientating city. Her rhythmic use of shapes and color makes for a lyrical vision. To emphasize that these scenes are not purely about a physical reality, the artist has painted then monochromatically, unifying the paintings while energizing them with a psychological edge.

         Ms. Uezumi's work serves as a vacation for tired urban eyes. One is reminded of how fresh and invigorating the world looks when one leaves home. The artist has taken our familiar world and tuned it into a place to ponder and wonder at. One re-discovers a "city" of shapes and forms that have been in front of our eyes all along. Ms. Uezumi's work gently reminds us of the need to see the world as if for the first time.

Fred Bendheim

Fred Bendheim - January 2000
Art Writer for "The Lancet" and artist