"Oil and Water," New Iberia artist Melissa Bonin's exhibit of paintings at Mario Villa Gallery, is quite good. What's even better for Louisiana art lovers is that it embodies one of those wonderful century-spanning, art-historical parallels that are so interesting to explore -- and you can do the exploration just by crossing the street. I'll explain in a minute.

Bonin paints swamp and river scenes: Dark, blurry images in which the indistinct trees seem to melt into their own indistinct shadows, which melt into the equally indistinct water, which melts into the indistinct sky. Her paintings are quiet, mysterious and beautiful, with a hint of foreboding just beneath the surface. In other words, she captures the haunting continuum of the Bayou State wetlands.

Bonin says she paints quickly in an alla prima, wet-on-wet technique. Wet-on-wet means she soaks the surface of the canvas with paint thinner and mixes her oil paints to a syrupy consistency with thinner plus poppy seed oil, copal and other mediums so that when she paints, everything flows together like muddy water and mist. Alla prima means there's no preliminary sketch or underpainting; she tries to get the scene all at once, with no fussiness to inhibit the flow of paint and inspiration. And if she doesn't get it the first time, she scrapes off the canvas and tries again. She restarted a recent painting 55 times before she captured the moment.

Sugar Mills Like Steampships

But when she gets it right -- she really gets it right. The clouds cutting diagonally through the sky in "Marshscape with French Palette" glow with the melancholy light of dusk. The tiny, enigmatic black shapes in the distance in "Sugarmills Like Steamships" are subtly menacing. And "Raspberry Glaze" is a bayou ablaze with an eerie alizarin glow.

Anyone who knows his Louisiana art history is going to look at Bonin's work and think of Alexander Drysdale (1870-1934), a prolific painter of swamp scenes who also used a wet-on-wet technique. It's not certain, but Drysdale may have begun painting on thick cardboard, with oil paint heavily thinned by kerosene, just to stretch his modest budget. But that expediency became his signature.

Like Bonin, he melded his technique perfectly with his subject. Flowing water became flowing pigment, dripping Spanish moss became dripping paint, dark oak trees blurring into the ground became dark blotches of paint soaking into the back-
ground. If you want to see for yourself, just cross Magazine Street to Jean Bragg Gallery (3901 Magazine), and look at the nine Drysdales on display.

As you look at these works, you'll notice that Bonin and Drysdale aren't exactly twins separated at birth. Bonin's work is more colorful and less detailed than Drysdale's -- he's more Barbizon and she's more Bonnard. But you'll also clearly see the parallel developments of the wet-on-wet styles each used to capture our wet-on-wet environment. And I've seen a few Drysdales that are almost as intensely colored and atmospheric as Bonin's works.

Which leaves only one question: Did Bonin model her style on his? No, she developed her own flowing style as she was being taught by another Louisiana legend, Elemore Morgan Jr., whose technique may be a touch dryer, but whose work has the same melting mistiness of both Drysdale and Bonin. The lesson here may be that sensitive artists will take what the environment gives them. When Louisiana spoke, these artists listened.