Continuing through March 21, 2026
Judith Belzer’s current exhibition features eleven sizeable works on canvas, paintings in acrylic gouache and flashe that fill an imposing, gargantuan gallery space well suited to a collection of monumental work that demands open space and close attention. Belzer’s mounting feelings of anxiety, keenly reflected in these works, relate to her concerns about climate change and the overheated political environment. Rather than heightening such feelings, the paintings place us in a quiet, contemplative space where we can, indeed must, engage in a bit of introspection.
“Weather Report #3” is an immersive work at 72 by 102 inches. Rendered in naturalistic hues of blue, white, and grey, it reads as an aerial perspective, a glimpse of a distant landscape below through a layer of clouds, as from a plane. Along with the atmospheric environments, the canvases are liberally marked with insistent groupings of small light-colored shapes. In this work the shapes are outlined in dark hues, paint or graphite, creating an inescapable visual noise that disrupts what might otherwise present a serene, if moody, vista.
An earlier series (“Where We Stand,” reviewed by David Roth in 2022 for SqC) featured large rocks, or boulders, as protagonists, precariously balanced or implausibly floating in similarly atmospheric realms.
Remnants of these earlier paintings now appear in various of the new works as rock-like shards, debris cast or flung off into space, while other forms might suggest water droplets. Many such fragments are about the size of a pencil eraser or smaller, and preponderantly circular, although more angular shapes also appear, with blotchy, irregular edges. The lower left third of “#3” consists of a scumbled, murky surface suggesting an encroaching darkness that feels ominous, as if a real or metaphorical storm is brewing.
The earliest works in this series, “Weather Report #1” and “#2” (both 72” x 86”), both include a swarm of rock forms, suggesting a transition from the 2022 series. In “#1,” dark clouds part to reveal trees or grasses in a greenish umber layer below, while a rosy-hued upper area hints at the coming dawn. “Weather Report #2,” with its palette of tender blues and pinks, includes more well-defined rocks, textured with shading and clearly articulated surfaces. With their imposing scale and the pent-up energy of a landscape obscured by threatening skies, they are descended from 19th century Romantic painting in that they awaken our sense of awe and insignificance in the face of the terrifying scale and splendor of nature.
Born in Chicago, Belzer moved to the Bay Area in 2003 and is now a bicoastal resident, splitting time between the bucolic hills of Berkeley and rural Connecticut. Over the course of more than 30 years she has been investigating the expressive potential of the landscape. Her colorful, abstracted vistas of wooded or marshy areas on the edge of urban sprawl and industrial parks, enlivened with fluid line and vertiginous perspectives, have been steadily evolving skyward, eschewing the details of specific topographies.
A virtuoso with the brush, Belzer creates breathtaking passages blending creamy mauves and pinks. These make for translucent layers shimmering with a mystical quality, a pulsing and animated feeling. These atmospheric passages are seductive, capable of enticing us into daydream, like looking for images in a cloudscape. Yet any impulse to doze off is quickly derailed by our awareness that something is off. There is a strong undercurrent of unease.
That unease recurs in “Weather Report #17” (2026), keyed to a dominant violet color tinged with pink and gold, petal-like dots that hint at foliage floating along diagonal lines resembling twigs or slender branches. Other lines whip around more energetically, suggesting tangles of string, or abstract skeins of paint flung from the brush à la Jackson Pollock. Jagged edges and dark lines echo rents in the canvas, scratches, cuts, or scars, all conveying a feeling of discord, even of violence — in sharp contrast to the suggestions of spring seen earlier in the series.
With its square format, the gold and brown atmospheric field of “Weather Report #5” is less suggestive of clouds than are others on view. Its speckled dots and flecks march across the center of the canvas in a wide, horizontal band. Each small dot or shape is elevated by a partial shadow, creating the illusion of either thick marks floating above or holes piercing into, even violating the canvas. What is all this stuff doing on top of these paintings? It’s like an act of self-inflicted vandalism. We may recall other painters who have taken violent actions on the canvas. Niki de St. Phalle and Joe Goode shot holes in their work with a rifle. Lucio Fontana cut deep gashes in his paintings. Yves Klein and Alberto Burri singed their paintings with fire. It is noteworthy that in Belzer’s process the canvas itself remains unscathed, the damage is all illusory.
Belzer’s conflicting impulses and tactics here — the meditative qualities of the atmospheric areas and the aggressive, violent energy of insistently applied scrawls, scuffs, and marks — reveal a mind attempting to process too much distressing and contradictory information. Belzer states, “Not knowing how or even if we’ll land back on any sort of a solid ground, I am thinking it best to continue exploring the herky-jerky, predictably unpredictable conditions of our times (one that mirrors the creative process too) to embrace uncertainty. This is our life now.”
