Big Bang Theory

Lynn Rupe seems to have exploded. The Burlington artist’s exhibition of five large-scale acrylic works at the Flynn Center’s Amy E. Tarrant Gallery is densely packed with thousands of lines and a universe of lively shapes that seem to have all been created in a single big bang.

The show is entitled “Kaleidoscopic Paintings,” and it can safely be called one of the most dynamic visual-art performances seen locally in many years.

But unlike the apocalyptic event that probably kicked off our cosmos, Rupe’s genesis has not occurred in a vacuum. She has been making large pieces out of groupings of smaller ones for quite some time, and her brand of abstraction is often biomorphic — as is true with passages in this show.

Rupe’s work is also influenced by art history, at least indirectly. The kaleidoscopic paintings are composed very much like Jackson Pollock’s pre-drip abstractions of 1940-1946. She works over the large panels she paints on with a series of brash, bright staccato statements, allowing little breathing space. Her colors are raw and flat, like the colors of the aisles of a supermarket.

Rupe’s 67-by-160-inch “M. L. Pandora’s Warehouse and Furniture Company” has a color harmony similar to Pollack’s “Circumcision” —- yellows, grays and reds dominate the scene. Similarly, her use of black and white outlines, which in this show are as wild as the rails of a rollercoaster, provide structure for a chaotic field of jagged forms.

“Area Not Photographed by National Geographic” is a twisted and flattened 80-by-153-inch landscape. Teacups on saucers float down a river and into a choppy blue bay, but most of the features in the painting are less comprehensible. Rupe writes in her artist’s statement that she is primarily painting “an array of images that resist straightforward interpretation,” and she holds true to that even when a few literal elements sneak into the picture.

One of those elements is a checkerboard pattern — a recurring motif in the works. It is very loose along the top edge of “Area Not Photographed by National Geographic” but more solid in “General Scrimmage” and “A Night at the Lackawanna Opera and Spa.” “General Scrimmage” also has jagged, saw-toothed patterns throughout it that form a nice counterpoint to the checkerboard.

The checkerboard is most prominent in “Family Terrarium” and it’s yellow and black rather than black and white. Perhaps it’s a subtle allusion to gaming, and to the notion that Rupe’s works are, in her words, “puzzles that have no need to be ‘solved.’” There’s a strong element of play and playfulness in the works. The more time a viewer spends examining Rupe’s paintings, the more new details are revealed.

Although it may be impossible to say whether any 21st-century artist can “boldly go where no one has gone before,” it is clear that Rupe’s paintings have taken a very productive turn. When Pollock’s work began to completely fill the picture plane with gestural forms, he became enamored with drip painting — a technique he learned from David Siqueros — and Rupe’s epiphany will certainly lead her into a different direction eventually. She is not the sort of painter who is content to rest on accolades and settle into production work. Meanwhile, it’s got to be fun to paint like this, and we all get to enjoy the ride.