Art review: Katherine Taylor at Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art

A sensation of muffled emotions pervades “Parallax,” Katherine Taylor’s impressive exhibition at the Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art.

The Atlanta artist’s paintings -- landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes -- are eerily still. They contain no people, little movement. Color is muted. Objects, while described in detail, are rarely sharply drawn; they appear indistinct, as if they are fading photographs or misty memories.

Yet, these silent images bear witness to cataclysm. Much of the work in this six-year retrospective deals with the terrible destruction wrought by the hurricanes that have raked the Biloxi, Miss., coast where she grew up -- Camille and, of course, Katrina.

This is clearest in paintings from the “Ground Losses” series. In “Landcruiser, 2006,” the battered car lies on its side in the foreground of a desolated landscape, alongside the remains of a building that is now a heap of wood shards. It’s a monumental canvas, 6 3/4 x 9 ½ feet, that harks back to 19th-century history painting.

The painting and others of that scale are limned in grays, black and white, as if they were newspaper photos (which may have been the source). They share a gallery with groupings of small canvases, shutter clicks of one wreck after another.

Taylor, an assistant professor at Kennesaw State University, suggests nature’s power to reclaim as well as destroy. The “Oasis” series depicts the Katrina-wracked coast after time has passed. Only a glimpse of a pool rail or a lone chair suggests that this landscape was once crowded with resorts and tourists.

Now, she suggests, the land is returning to nature. The central “character” of each of these works is a palm tree -- symbolic of vacation memories and tourist culture but also of survival.

More recently, the artist has turned her attention to marine paintings. Taken from naval photographs of old destroyers, the warships in these monumental paintings ply the oceans as if they are in charge. Like the hurricanes, they are vehicles of destruction.

Taylor refers to the stormy and battle-filled seascapes of 19th century British painter J.M.W. Turner and the tradition of the sublime when writing about this work, but it is, in a way, the opposite. No awe and terror here; instead, it’s reportorial distance or 21st century numbness. Despite or perhaps because of this buried emotion, the works gets under your skin.

Taylor’s style accentuates this feeling of distance. She builds the creamy surfaces with layers of oil paint; only the occasional glimpse of under-painting suggests the laborious process. She blurs edges and subtle colors to create their soft-focus effect, which you might compare with German artist Gerhard Richter.

She also is conducting a conversation about the relationship between painting and photography, or maybe it’s more a game of hide-and-seek.

Taylor allows herself more freedom and chance in the small watercolors of ships and in paintings inspired by Atlanta’s floods, which are animated by drips, dribbles and gestural marks. It would be interesting to see more of this.