Elliot Bostwick Davis, Ph.D. Former Director and CEO, Norton Museum of Art ​

 

Torrence's paintings are Jewels. Their distinctive sparkle recently captured my
attention at a local exhibition in Palm Beach. Getting to know Palm Beach County during the two years we lived there. I was captivated by how he
represented the beauty of the Florida landscape, a special place that has
inspired generations of American artists, in his own Inimitable way.

As an art history student, I was mesmerized by Winslow Homer's sparkling scenes of Florida's sponge boats suspended on paper by his glistening strokes of watercolor. Later, as a curator of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was fascinated by John James Audubon's hand-colored engravings produced as part of a monumental survey documenting North American birds, and his angular images of flamingoes and roseate spoonbills folded carefully into his vast glimpses of Florida's Keys. At the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, I became intimately familiar with Martin Johnson Heade's Florida landscapes bathed in steamy, atmospheric mists. In West Palm Beach. At the Norton Museum of Art, I was fortunate to live next door to resident artists who
nurtured their remarkable aesthetic visions for textiles, video, painting, and
combined media surrounded by mangoes, palms, and Royal Poinciana trees.

Torrence's Florida landscapes skillfully balance an Old Master sensibility with his contemporary aesthetic. In Hedge Fund, the artist's vision and commentary are laid bare, one small stroke at a time. Seen from behind, a male figure wearing dungarees and a chambray shirt tilts his head covered by a broad-brimmed straw hat to concentrate on artfully sculpting the enormous hedge towering over him. It is careful and straining work analogous to Torrence's deliberate handling of acrylic paint. Verticals created by an archway in the hedge echo the verticals of the figure's firmly-planted stance, the slender
handle of his trimmer, and the sharp corner of the foliage, further highlighted
by the tip of a distant telephone pole. A water container with an upright handle
stands at attention. Both carefully constructed and timelessly observed, it
rests on a strip of lush trimmings more impressive than any stretch of red
carpet. Palm Beach, named for its elegant fronds that once drifted ashore,
now bespeaks a manicured aesthetic. It is nature sculpted at great skill and
cost by dedicated, anonymous workers Torrence portrays by meticulously
subsuming any trace of his brush to the overall effect of infinite tiny leaves
flickering across massive walls of hedge.

In addition to capturing precious slices of Palm Beach, Torrence expresses a remarkable range of emotion in Florida's extraordinary skies. Whether at sunrise, the heat of a summer afternoon, or during a sea squall, Torrence's den technique is a perfect match for the ephemeral qualities of Florida's atmosphere, running the gamut from feathery and flat to the bombastic, towering displays of magnificent cumulus clouds.

Whether seen through the veil of generations of American artists who preceded him, or glanced freshly from a contemporary perspective, Torrence's landscapes ultimately transport our imagination, conjuring up Florida's remarkable salt air, sunshine, and tropical scenery with memories that
take our breath away.