Honolulu

Betty Decker

Paul Martin Music and Art Studio, Kailua

Mrs. Decker’s Surrealistic spoofing of human foibles through organic, shmoo-like figures has recently represented some of the most imaginative painting going on here. Unfortunately this showing of 10 mixed-media paintings is the last for Mrs. Decker in the Islands. Pretty much anything goes in expressive means as well as materials (boat resin, wire, kleenex, liquitex, etc.); yet her satire is one of tongue-in-cheek rather than the destructiveness of a Dubuffet. In Happy Hour two figures coil around a table and each other; Boo poses three very surprised-looking figures next to one another in brilliant blues and reds; and Family Portrait parodies the usual stiffness of this portrait type.

––Joanna Shaw Eagle