Peter Frank

L.A. Weekly

January 21-27, 2000

There's plenty of magical mystery in the straight-ahead paintings of Gillian Theobald -- in large part because they're not so straight-ahead. What seem from afar (and not too afar at that) as minimalist abstractions, a dark monochrome panel on the left, a light one on the right, reveal themselves on closer inspection as stylized landscapes, dual views of the same tree(s) or house(s) or combination(s) thereof. Most abstract landscape painters render sky as an upper band, earth as a lower one. Theobald has set that polarity on its side, contrasting not the basic elements of space but the basic elements of time: The nighttime view is on the left, daytime's on the right. The landscape stuff itself is down at the bottom of each painting, faint almost unto invisibility, allowing us the contemplation of light and time per se.