A Peculiar Pas de Deux: Andree Hudson’s menagerie
Preparing to Dance – Andree Hudson
Andree Hudson‘s ballerina in “Preparing to Dance” is the picture of delicate grace. The shape she creates with her body when she stretches seems carefully choreographed; she’s a quivering lotus flower, a rainforest frog resting on a leaf. Andree worked as an illustrator for medical textbooks in college, and you can see how precisely she builds the woman’s slender frame beneath those gestural ribbons of vibrant acrylic.
Imagine my surprise, then, when Andree tells me that this dancer has something in common with the great lumbering beasts of Colorado’s High Plains. “A lot of times I’m painting longhorns, and they remind me of ballerinas,” she says. “It’s just something about the way cows run towards you that looks like a dance.”
Rush Hour – Andree Hudson
Could there be common ground between the dusty corral of “Rush Hour” and the smooth dance floor in “Preparing to Dance”? It might seem like a stretch, but take a moment to peer through the lifelong artist‘s eyes.
Though “Preparing to Dance” seems serene, and its subject docile, there’s pent up power in those lean muscles that’s reflected in Andree’s sizzling palette. Look again at “Rush Hour” and you’ll find a similar array of pure hues. The dancer might be lost in thought, but if she rose to her toes she’d be fit to lead the longhorns’ swirling stampede.
The Dance – Andree Hudson
Indeed, the sensuous lines of the ballerina’s legs in “The Dance” closely match those of the beasts in “Rush Hour”. It’s suddenly easier to picture the cows as a burly ballet troupe, or to see the animals’ bodies in the angular figures of the dancers.
Now imagine the surreal beauty of a pas de deux between them. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched in the extraordinary world of Andree Hudson.
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