Movie Review: "Cave of Forgotten Dreams": Genius Neanderthal artists!!

"Cave of Forgotten Dreams" (now available on DVD) is an amazing film. It's about the 1997 discovery of the Chauvet cave in France, which houses the oldest Neanderthal cave paintings known to Man.  It's a revolutionary discovery: the paintings are in pristine condition, and they have the effect of speaking to you across time. There might be a separation of 30,000 years between you and this cave art, but what's so amazing is it feels as if there's no distance at all between you. Time and history melt away, and it's just a bond between you and this artist (who you'll get to know as the movie progresses)

 The paintings, for the most art, are in pristine condition; it seems like no time has passed.  The presence of calcite crystals on the paintings is evidence that these works are indeed real and not fake; they've just had the good fortune of been in an environment that was safe from rain and wind (the cave had collapsed tens of thousands of years ago, forming a protective germ-free environment) Although this movie is billed as a documentary, it's also very much an art film.

One of the first things that popped into my mind when looking at this Neanderthal cave art was "Why does this work seem so fresh and immediate? And why does so much current artwork look so dated?" That was a paradox that I was constantly reminded of: the prehistoric work seemed to have a spirit and a presence that was very much in the "now", whereas as the "modern" work just mentioned seemed faddish and  false. The cave drawings at Chauvet cave has a life and fluidity that just draws you in; you can sense the presence of artist as a real personality, right there with you.

One thing that I really thought was great were the types of animals in the cave murals. All of them were of species that no longer exist. Commentators talk about the "horses" and the "bulls" in the murals, but what's actually there (at least what I see) are prehistoric creatures that are now extinct. There is a creature that looks like a horse, but it's not a horse: it's neck is too short and thick, and it's mane is actually like a scrub brush that lies across his back. There's also something unusual with the shapes of these creatures heads, and the size the their ears (which are much smaller than a horses ears). These are some relative of a horse, but they're not horses. However, they are a peek into the past about what kinds of creatures actually roamed the earth.  The same goes for the drawings of a "bull". If you look closely, it's actually not a bull, but rather, a giant rodent with tusks.  Go on, have another look! These murals are great not just for the talent of the artist, but also for his eye witness account of now-extinct animals.

Another thing I enjoyed in this movie is that the researchers were able to identify one of the artists! There were multiple types of art in the cave artwork in Chauvet cave: the animal paintings,  non-objective art (red dot patterns), some abstract symbols that looked vaguely like insects and butterflies, and printing (hand prints). I was really impressed with the skill and the sensitivity of these Neanderthal painters. But I was also impressed at how much of modern art history was "anticipated" (hah! yeah, right...) by these Neanderthals. Many of the hand prints had a bent pinky finger: this was hist signature. That bent finger print showed up in multiple places in the cave. Thus, much of this cave art can be traced to an individual artist!

Another thing that impressed me in this movie as the layers of history in the Chauvet cave.  Not all of the drawings and artwork in the cave came from the same time. The oldest artwork is from 32,000 years ago, but there is also other artwork (drawn right over pre-existing artwork) that is 28,000 years old! Thus, these murals actually have a history unto themselves, with thousands of years separating the various artist contributions.

Lingering in the back of my mind was the question "why are these artists painting on the cave walls?" No one knows if these murals were part of a theatrical presentation, a religious ceremony, or simply as a backdrop for a display of art. The researchers in the film note that while there are many bones in the cave (usually of a prehistoric bear), there are no human bones in there.  Perhaps the cave was used as a theater? No one knows...

This movie really gives you a long view of history, and your place in it. Curiously, seeing and connecting with this artwork gives one a feeling of being connected to all of human history, or even cosmic history. When artwork from prehistoric times has a moving effect on you; when you see yourself in the work; when you start sympathizing with the Neanderthal artist; when you look at these depictions of prehistoric animals, and you really feel as though you art there...then art has transcended space and time, and it's connected with you in what can only be described as a "spiritual" way. Records of the past are all around us. We just need to know where to find them and how to see them.

As you can see, I really enjoyed this movie! A great art flick! And a great discovery an an amazing artist: Mr. Crooked Pinky Finger.

It's said that life if short, but art is long. Here's the proof.

Martin Quintinilla's "Tucson" paintings...at the Contreras Gallery

view of the Contreras Gallery, with Martin Quintinilla's new exhibit

Artist Martin Quintinilla has a new body of work now showing at the Contreras Gallery, in Tucson, AZ.  The theme of this show is "Martin Quintinilla's Tucson".  There are 27 paintings in this show, from huge to pequeño. Included here are Martin's portrayal of Tucson, some images of himself, and some unique creations from his imagination. As with any Quintinilla exhibit, there's always a lot to look at, and no two paintings are alike. Step right this way, the circus has rolled into town!


The first thing you confront when you walk into this exhibit is a massive painting called "Tradado de Guadalupe Hidalgo" mural.  This is a diptych, that measures 6 feet high x 11 feet wide.  The painting depicts an expansive view of Mexico, when still included Arizona.  The quality of the painting shows Martin's skill as representational artist.  A sign painted on the far right side of this mural explains what we're looking at:

closeup of scroll on the "Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo Mural" (right side of mural)

One thing I've notice with Quintinilla's work is that he's got a sense of history.  His imagery includes things from the present (with all of its references to pop culture and current events), as well as links to the past. A good example of that is this mural itself: it provides a quick lesson in some of Tucson's history, and is a great way to introduce a show who's theme is "Tucson". This painting has some other nice details, such as a caballero, as well as some ancient petroglyphs:

a caballero in the lower center of the mural

...and on the left side of the mural, some petroglyphs

The centerpiece of the show is a large painting called "Pecado Original" ("Original Sin").  It looks like a refashioning of the Garden of Eden story, but with Tucson-oriented imagery. Instead of a Tree of Knowledge, we see a large Saguaro Cactus, with a Star of David and a crucifix adorning the center-most arm. A diamondback snake crawls amongst the cactus arms.  The Garden itself appears to be abbreviated, reduced to the size of a small "landscape feature", after real estate developers had their way with it. Adam and Eve are nowhere to be seen. The only characters hanging around the "Cactus of Knowledge" are the Devil himself, and a cute looking sheep.  The Hotel Congress sign hovers above in the background, flanked by bottles of booze, the Rialto Theater, an old-fashioned turntable, and what looks like Mexican lotteria cards.  In the distance, dividing the paintng in half horizontally, are railway cars, spray painted with graffiti.  An all-seeing eye hovers at the top, sprouting marijuana leaves from all angles, and the the bottom, a Mexican wrestling mask, which has grown wings made out of the Mexican flag, and sporting the phrase "Vida Loca".

"Pecado Original"...Tucson style

On the top and sides of the "Pecado Original" painting, are 50 bottle caps from Miller High life beer.  Have a look (I counted them):

Quintinilla's use of beer bottle caps for decoration on the side of this painting (a lotteria character is also visible...)

Next to "Pecado Original" is a self portrait called "Shaman's Eater".  The painting shows Martin as a fire-breathing shaman as he lifts a tiny little doll-sized man into his mouth.  Before him, on a table that is out of perspective, are a large muscular heart on a plate, an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, a copy of Juxtapoz magazine, a large Gumby doll, a toy monster truck, a tiki god, and several human specimens in jars.  Elsewhere in the room hangs a shrunken head, and visible from the window is an Aztec temple flowing with blood.

"Shaman's Eater"

The structure of the picture has the Old World (the world of the Aztecs) in the background, the New World (the world of Gumby, monster trucks, and Juxtapoz magazine) in the foreground. Martin, as Shaman, stands in the center of it all, paintbrush in hand, eating these little people in this ritual of sacrifice. I've heard the artists make sacrifices, but with this painting, Quintinilla has given that phrase a whole new meaning!

One can't help noticing the abundance of text in Quintinilla's work. He doesn't just paint with images, he also includes lots of signs and lettering in his work. A good example of that is his piece called "Downtown"

"Downtown": is that a party animal?

One of my favorite pieces in this show is called "Hipster".  Like in "Pecado Original", you can also see the "Hotel Congress" sign, but here, there are so many other signs to see.  This picture is loaded with signs of hip places downtown, including Hotel Congress, The Rialto, The Fox Theater, The Grill, and a variety of other places such as "Yoga", "Parking", and "Gallery". Martin's always had a psychedelic side to him. In this painting, the whole picture starts to hallucinate, breaking down and flattening out into a network of color patches, patterns, and designs.  Floating at the top center is what I gather is Quintinilla's logo: an all-seeing eye in the center of a spade symbol.

"Hipster"

In the painting "Jardin",  Quintilla paints a psychedelic garden scene, made almost exclusively of whimsical trippy lines and invented shapes. A few roses in foreground remind us that we are, indeed, in a garden....a garden of the mind!

"Jardin"

I like how Martin's paintings demonstrate a sense of place (i.e. Tucson), a sense of history, and an obvious love of pop culture.  I like how he mixes nicely painted pictures of the Arizona landscape, with his oddball imaginary characters, with all sorts of folk art touches (e.g. bottle caps hammered to the frame).  His work is visually rich and is a lot of fun to look at. 

Tucson's got a load of artists, but there's only one Martin Quintinilla!  I think he's really great, and that this is a really fine show. Check it out!

Christina McNearny's "Modello" series, at Tucson Int'l Airport Gallery

One of Christina's 36 artworks at her show at Tucson International Airport Gallery

Artist Christina McNearny has an exhibit of 36 works of art, currently showing that the Gallery inside the Tucson International Airport. About five years ago, the gallery at the airport was the THE art destination for airport travelers. Now, every gallery in town seems to have it's own wall space at the airport. From tip to tail, the airport has become like a mall of local galleries.  This has added a lot to the culture of the airport, but it's also made it a little more difficult to find the original airport gallery! That original airport gallery is where you'll find Christina's work.

The work here is a combination of monoprint, painted washes, color photocopy transfer (it appears), sprayed shapes over stencils or masks, and then globs of swirled and dribbled paint.  The title of her exhibit includes the word "gravity", probably as an acknowledgement that gravity helped her create those dribble effects!  If I was to describe Christina's work, I'd say that it was "surrealist printmaking" because of it simultaneous automatic and dream-like quality.

This is a show about texture and pattern, and functions as a showcase for a variety of alternative printmaking techniques.  The show is divided into four bodies of work: "walking", "desert", "Hurricane Ike", and "Relative Size".  As a whole, the exhibit is of one piece. Christina is very consistent in her methods.  They're all composed of a series of layers, and each layer is made up of a different printmaking techniques.

close up of Christina's techniques (from her "Lizard Skin" piece):

It appears to me that her paintings all start with a monoprint as a foundation. (For those who don't know, a monoprint is where you paint with printing ink directly onto a sheet of acrylic, put a piece of paper over it, and run it through a printing press. The resulting print on the paper is called a "monoprint", since you just make one copy). 

There are very few actual brush strokes in these paintings. Most of this work is the result of pours, prints, mists, stamps, and torn edges.  There's an "automatic" quality to this work, where the compositions often feel found or discovered as the artist is working. 

"Unexpected Arrival"

 "Unexpected Arrival" is a small painting, which has three basic things happening in it. First, there's the purple tinted background, flecked with white paint. (Flecks and sprays of paint are one of the texture-creating methods that Christina uses in this work.) On top of this, she lays down a series of blue and purple circles, linked in a chain-like fashion. And on top of that, a big bluish blob of paint, with a white dribble that looks like melting whipped cream. 

"After Image"

The painting "After Image" is a good illustration of Christina's layered approach: the first layer (the yellow background)is painted;  on top of that is the next layer: the orange patterns  (probably) created with color xerox transfers. The top layer (that is, the foreground) is made of bright green and blue paint that appears to have been dribbled on and manipulated with a stick.  When you look at this piece up close the variety of texture and detail can be a bit overwhelming because there's so much to look at, but from afar, the painting organizes itself into clusters of dark and light shapes, and that's what gives it its composition.

"Cove"

My favorite painting in the exhibit is a large piece, titled "Cove". I think I like it for the abundance of that sprayed and stenciled appearance: I've always liked that look! But formally speaking, I think that this piece is organized very well: it's got a nice distribution of dark and light shapes, and I like it for all of its hard edges. When you're working with as much texture and pattern as Christina is in these paintings, it's easy for the eye to get overwhelmed. Those broad areas of hard-edged solid shapes serve to hold things together; they offer some spaces that are tamed down a bit. This picture also has a self-illuminating quality.  The brightest and darkest places in this picture are right next to each other (just off-center), so that also provides a center of interest.

"Daydream"

The most interesting painting in the show, for me, is "Daydream". It's interesting because it looks like she's used paint to create a printed effect. The background layer is that yellow and orange pattern. I looked at it closely, and it appears to have been made with paint pours and dribbles, into which the artist painted little orange circles in all of the blank spaces; that created the initial pattern for the background. The blue swoosh-like shape in the center is made with a combination of the swoosh of a dry brush, and some atomized paint wash sprayed over a mask or a stencil.  Other masked and sprayed areas are visible at the bottom of this painting.  This one has a "landscape" composition, with the bright detail at the top of the picture serving as the sky, the blue shapes in the middle resembling some sort of creature, and the dark shapes at the bottom looking like mountains.

"Shift"

"Shift is a cute little painting on wood (about 9" x 12" in size) that has a bright happy feel.  The cyan, yellow, and magenta colors, along with the torn edges remind of the perky days of New Wave pop. This would have made a great dust jacked for an EP back in the day....

"Snake in the Lake"

"Snake in the Lake" is another work that I'm drawn to. I like it for its simplicity.  She's limited herself to just two techniques: monoprint and masked-off-sprayed-on areas. I'm guessing that the yellow shape is the snake in the lake.

Check it out! Christina McNearny's "Modello" exhibit, at the Tucson International Airport Gallery! (And remember to get your parking ticket validated!)

Melancholia (the movie): It gave me a headache!

"Melancholia" is showing at the Loft Theater.  This is not technically an art exhibit...or was it? I felt like reviewing it here, here's my impression of it.

I was not one of those who are raving about this movie. I like the concept, I like some of the visuals (and their references to art history, notably "Ophelia" by John Everett Millais ("malaise"?) (and David's "Death of Marat", among others) but this movie gave me a headache. As I write this, I  still  have a headache. I went into this flick hoping to be transformed. What a disappointment!  I'm still the same, but now I have a headache!

I was hoping for a very moving, transformative piece about...I don't know, life, carpe diem, beauty and disaster, the "sublime"....  mainly because others have raved about this movie, saying how great it was. Maybe my expectations were too high??   In a nutshell, this movie feels as  if Ingmar Bergman and Andy Warhol collaborated to do a remake of the 1950's Sci-Fi flick, "When World's Collide"

 The context and emotional landscape are both from the 1950's: in the movies, we had the sci-fi disaster flicks, and on the literary front, we had existentialist philosophy.  This really is an existentialist movie, since it deals with the question "how would you live your life if you only had one day to live?"  One hopes, as the best existentialist writers said, that you'd approach you situation with courage.  This movie reminds me of some of Ingmar Bergman's films, which are also very long, brooding, and about messed up relationships. Here's a clip from Ingmar Bergman's "Persona", so you can get a feel for the mood, pace, and the long drawn out quality...

What "Melancholia" does is puts you in the mindset of someone who has no future (neither does the planet), and forces you to consider how you'd live your last day on Earth. What would you do?  You could freakout, and run around in a panic (as do the actors in "As World's Collide"), or you could try to negotiate a dignified exit in a situation in which its impossible to survive. (Here's the trailer for "When World's Collide")

The movie's opening introductory sequence (I'm talking about first 2-3 minutes of the film) are breathtakingly gorgeous. Lots of super slow motion surrealist montage. The beginning of the movie is like a silent short art movie unto itself. It brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautifully lush and graphically surreal portrayal of the disaster which creates the impetus for the film.  But after that first opening sequence, your endurance is severely tested.

The movie appears to be set up as a set of pairs: first, and most obviously, is the wedding couple itself: the pair which gets the movie started. Then there are two sisters, two planets (Earth and Melancholia), two halves of the movie (parts 1 & 2, each with it's own screen placard indicating just that, two passes around the Earth by Melancholia as it does it's "Dance Of Death". I'll stay within that tradition, and give this movie... 2 stars (no astronomical pun intended)

I mentioned that this film is part Sci Fi Disaster flick, and part homage to both Ingmar Bergman and Andy Warhol (his short movies that were at the Loft Theater last year). This movie has two winks at Warhol's short films: first, the quick, chopping, whiplash inducing camera work (to remind us that we're watching a film art object, not an illusion of reality). I'm thinking specifically of Warhol's film "My Hustler", which showed at the Loft last year, but which does not appear to be on YouTube.  In "Melancholia", as in "My Hustler", the camera is constantly moving around, jerking wildly, as if held by an amateur. I couldn't understand why I was getting car sick  watching this flick, but then it dawned on me: it's all of the jerky camera work!  I took a break in the lobby shortly after part 2 started, and chatted with one of the guys working at the snack bar.  He said that that jerky headache-inducing quality was intentional, so that we could feel the nausea that Kirsten Dunst's character was feeling. I believe him. There's no other good explanation for it.  A supporting argument for seeing shades of Warhol in this movie is the presence of Udo Kier, who starred in several of Warhol's later (more polished) movies, such as "Dracula" and "Frankenstein". (Here's a clip of Udo in Warhol's "Dracula", although in "Melancholia", he's an old distinguished looking servant

 The trailer for "Melancholia" is very deceptive, since it is fast paced. You get no sense of the long drawn out headache that's about to hit you (Here's the trailer)

Despite this, there are definitely many positive things about this picture: it's got a very intimate feeling;  you get a feeling as if you're really spending time with these characters. The topic (i.e. the End of the World) is grim, but it's set against some breathtakingly beautiful scenery. The ugliness actually comes from the people, and their pathetic lives.  Nature, and the Cosmos, are Beautiful. People, and their problems, don't quite measure up.

This movie presents you with a thought-experiment: you're getting married on the Earth's Last Day. Would that change your plans at all? It's something to think about. (As this movie suggests, loud grandiose Classical music helps move things along)


(c) 2011 by Howard Salmon

3rd Annual Sculpture Garden Exhibit...at Tucson Jewish Community Center (13 Nov 2011)

A view of the sculpture garden at the Tucson Jewish Community Center

In conjunction with the "Open Studios" event, currently happening in Tucson this weekend, The Tucson Jewish Community Center hosted their 3rd Annual Sculpture Garden Exhibit. I caught it, with about 1/2 hr to spare, and with a light rain just starting... Here's how I saw  it!

This is a really nice exhibit. The JCC created a full-color explanatory booklet to go with the show, with an introduction written by Elaine King, who is a professor of Art Theory at Carnegie Mellon University. In her essay, she explains her selection criteria: work must be creative, and well-made: 

When I first entered, I was greeted by jazz music, by some cool cats. Here they art, jamming away...

Live jazz on sculpture garden patio. Coffee's inside...

Before looking at individual sculptures, I walked around the whole exhibit to get the lay of the land. I met sculptor Keven Burnett, who was still installing his sculpture called "Capricious Tongues". It looked like five weather vanes, but instead of arrows, they had tongues on a stick to point in the direction of the prevailing political winds....

Keven Burnett installing "Capricious Tongues"

cast iron wagging tongue on the end of a stick

Keven Burnett also created one of my favorite works in this show: sculpture of two men crawling up the side of the JCC, like Spiderman, each push a wire-frame boulder. The work is called "Sisyphus":

Keven Burnett's "Sisyphus"

Underneatch "Sisyphus", at ground level, is a sculpture by Lori Anderson  called "The Veteran". This piece looking like there's figure (presumably a soldier or a vet), wrapped up in what looks like are dragonfly wings.

Lori Anderson's "The Veteran"

Next to Lori Anderson's piece, is a very creative sculpture by Martha Dunham.  It is called "Forged Identity: Yitzak Rabin".  The sculpture depicts a large fingerprint.  The exhibit book has the artist stating that the human fingerprint represents life.

I wonder if that's HER fingerprint??

On the green grassy lawn, there is some art that is is definitly mimicing Nature: bent wire birds nests, created created by artists (or by some pretty strong birds) The nests are made of rusted coathanger wire and blue stone eggs.

Blue stone eggs in the center of a rusted wire cluster

One sculpture I really enjoyed was called "Agree to Disagree". It shows two abstract forms looking like two beached whales, hanging out under a swing set:

"Agree to Disagree"...giant figs having fun at the swingset

 Artist Tidi Ozeri has a sculpture here called "Tree of Knowledge". Here it is...

Tidi Ozeri's "Tree of Knowlege"

At the exhibit, I bumped into two local artists, Ben Oreck, and Vallerie Galloway! Ben is one of the sculptors in this show.

Valerie Galloway and Ben Oreck: making the sculpture scene!

...And that's my ever-so-brief art scene report...

Janet Olsson's dark surrealism...at the Davis Dominguez Gallery

"...And The Woman On The Left" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson. Dark, cryptic, surreal imagery.

At the Davis-Dominguez gallery, artist Jan Olssen has an impressive number of paintings that all seem to be about various stages in a particular relationship. The relationship doesn't end well. The narrative (as I see it) starts in the small foyer area of the gallery, with pastel works on cardboard. The colors are very drab: lots of tints and greyed-down tones; washed out greens and pinks, with some chalky off-white regions, with pencil accents. I was remind of illustration from the 1950s. The composition, the subject matter, the color and style...it had a nostalgic feel. This is true of all of Jan Olsson's work here at this exhibit.  An overriding theme seemed to be memory.

"Seated Woman With Tape Measure and Iron":(c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson striking a nostalgic chord...

Olsson's piece "Seated Woman with a Tape Measure and Iron" is part of a series of pastel drawings that are all about a woman getting ready for ....something. There's picture of her ironing a garment, there's picture of her sewing at a sewing machine...several tight shots of a single women getting some clothes ready.   Another picture in the series shows a woman posing before a mirror, a man with a crew cut and wrapped in a trench coat, waiting for her...

"Man, Woman, and Heart" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson

"Man, Woman, and Heart" suggests some sort of romance of relationship, but only in the simplest of outlines. Again, muted pastel colors from another era dominate the picture. The drawings are quick and sketchy, and have the appearance of fashion illustration. A hot pink heart shape at the lower center of the picture helps further the idea that love is in bloom in this picture. But this relationship is about to go south, once you get into the larger gallery space...

"Girls" by Janet Olsson. Allusions to 'Alice in Wonderland'?  (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson

When you enter the large room at Davis-Dominguez, you see more of Jan Olssen's work, but there are two new styles; there is a multi-media collage thing going on here. The painting "Girls" is a key piece in this exhibit is a sort of key to the show, I feel, because it contains a lot of clues about how to read the exhibit (at least to me). First, the work is structured in layers: Olssen combines photo collage, with splattered paint, with tinted drawings.  The drawings show two girls dressed up as if they were bridesmaids, or as if they were going to some fancy event. One is dressed in a red dress, the other in a blue one. The blond girl looks like Alice in Wonderland. Doesn't a part of "Alice in Wonderland" involve a red pill and a blue pill? Hmmm.... could this all be a dream? The "Alice" character is reaching out towards a big butterfly: a symbol of innocence and freedom. But as you look in the background, you notice a few white geysers of paint, along with some collaged photos of dirt, gravel, and some triangular foundation things (probably used for building a house); in the lower right corner are collaged photos of broken wooden palettes (used for loading heavy things onto a truck). So what does this all mean? A nice drawing of two girls going to a wedding, amidst a backdrop of dirt, damage, and disorder?

"Night Blooming" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson

By the time you get the painting "Night Blooming", things have turned chaotic. Once again,  Jan Olssen uses collage to build her pictures, starting with photos of broken up wood as a foundation (noticeable in the upper right portion of the picture above), on which she painting images of a child with a lost look on her face (lower right), several flowers (nightblooming cereus?; on the left...), an image of a woman with her hand on her face (crying?), and a ghostly outline of a man who looks very animated, but it's not clear what he's doing  (playing piano?)  Also, more splattered and dribbled white paint, over the flowers and shooting up to the right of the picture. With this picture, you feel as if you've walked into a scene of chaos. Olssen's work is very symbolic, but the symbols are all very personal, so to decipher the work, it's like trying to psychoanalyze the artist... My guess is that this picture is about a broken home. The figures in this painting do not look happy. They look like they're in various stages of distress, from anger, to grief, to shock. The chaotic photos (the "reality" of the picture) shows pictures of a home that is literally broken: broken boards, chunks of dirt and cement. So why the flowers? A symbol of hope? Of life? It's not clear...  This painting too has a washed out, monochromatic look; a barren look that looks like black and white TV, an old movie...the color of "memory"...

"Oracle" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson: Southwestern surrealism

 The painting "Oracle" is one of the best paintings in this show (along with "Treasure Hunt", which I'm describe momentarily). "Oracle" is a total surrealist southwestern tableaux. Olssen's limited colors (just black, white, and orange) magnify the already intense mood of this piece (with its crazed imagery).  This painting "Oracle" has elements common to the collage work previously described, but in this case, it is entirely painted. Even the drizzled white paint strewn across the canvas is also carefully rendered. Whereas in some of previous pieces I've described here, Olssen splattered actual white paint onto her work, in "Oracle" she carefully painted the shape of a paint splatter. Obviously that white paint drizzle shape has symbolic meaning for her, because it's present is most of her work in this exhibit.  She's got that same white paint splatter-type graffiti drizzled over many of her paintings. Maybe I should ask that dog in the background what's going on here? Other symbolic images here are the shrouded woman (a symbol of grief?), the dog (traditionally a symbol of loyalty), and those goofy ghost masks in the lower right. But that white splatter really dominates this picture. Is this the artist defacing her own picture? Is she drawing graffiti over her own work? Or is it simply a design element? I'm not really sure... Also, notice that the trashed wood palettes, the "broken home" has been replaced by an outhouse.  Or is that a dog house? I'm guessing that this picture is about betrayal...it all kinda adds up...

"Treasure Hunt" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson

In "Treasure Hunt", we see a bunch of sheep's heads (or are those goats?), woman standing in a puddle of white water  (or is it spilled milk? Or more white goo?)  In the background there is another house (or is that a barn?), with a forest on the upper left side of the picture. In the forest, in two places, stand two women (one on the upper left, holding an orange glowing thing behind her back), and the other waaay in the background in the upper right of the painting, standing nude and alone in a barren landscape.  At the very least, I can say that these images are about a sense of darkness and disorder.

"Best Man" (c) 2011 by  Janet Olsson

As I noted earlier, much of the work in Janet Olsson's exhibit is collage. Several of her pieces have a "Day of the Dead" quality about them, since they include photos of people from "Day of the Dead" parties. In the piece titled "Best Man", Olsson has followed her formula: she starts with a photo, adds collaged elements (a cake, a paper doll groom outfit), and again, more drizzled white paint. In this picture, she's made a halo of gold dots around the best man's head, all hastily done, as if an afterthought.

There's a very stark and angry quality about this work. You see it in the splattered paint. You see it in the images of (literally) broken homes, splintered wood, and chunks of concrete. You see it in the angular, disrupted compositions. You see it in the limited color palate. You see it in the symbols of death and mourning.

I like how she starts her paintings by collaging photos, and then using that as a foundation for a painting. I like how she creates a sense of moodiness and mystery, by limiting her colors to just one or two. I find her imagery disturbing, but that's fine: she does a good job of it.

This is art about loss and disappointment...and grief...and anger. The mood is dark, the compositions are active, and the imagery is surreal. This is painting for our times.

Ruben Moreno's "Socratic Codices" @ Contreras Gallery (November 2011)

View of the Contreras Gallery, now showing Ruben Moreno's "Socratic Codices"

Local artist, Ruben Moreno, has a very ambitious and very impressive show at the Contreras Gallery.  It is highly conceptual in nature, and after spending a fair amount of time lingering over his 21 medium sized paintings, I came to this conclusion: Ruben needs to make a feature length film. He's got an imagination like Steven Spielberg, and he's got a sense of darkness and the macabre like Alfred Hitchcock.
 
Standing in the middle of the gallery, you're surrounded by the work, and even though it's very surreal, dreamlike, and "arty" in some of its imagery (that is, characters hold up objects, making them into symbols...but of what?) , it has a very personal feel.  It's risky making work like this which is so pedantic: at times, it feels a bit like the TV show "Lost"...with so much dream imagery, with cryptic titles, and with a philosophy about seeing the world as composed as a series of sets of four (e.g. "Four Elements", "Four Horsemen", "Four Main Emotions", and so on)  This type of one-size-fits-all philosophy can be a bit much to take (there are "fours" everywhere!), but Ruben's saving grace is that he invests so much of his personal life into the work, that it feels like a confession. He's put so much care in the drawing and execution of the paintings, that you can feel that has a respect for his subject matter, and also for his audience.

"The Four Emotions: Love, Hate, Joy, Sadness": A touch of Stephen King or Alfred Hitchcock?

I should say something about his painting technique: he doesn't use much paint. In fact, many of these pictures rely on the natural color of the wood grain ieft. There's no gesso here: it's all tinted and stained wood (blue and orange tend to be the predominant colors). These paintings are very minimally colored. They're actually more like tinted wooden boxes.

You can feel many of cross-currents and relationships between the various pictures: this is a body of work that gives you big hug: it feels like a big family of images.  But that's its "weakness" too: each work has its strength when in the community of all the other paintings, but is diminished when each is considered alone. The strength of the "Socratic Codices" is in the community of paintings. To see only one of these paintings is to see this work out of context.  Ruben's work has a cumulative effect, and the more you see, the more you understand his epic idea. Which is why I see the next logical place for Ruben to go is Hollywood! With ideas this vast, he should probably make an epic-length film. His images all seem like movie posters anyhow. But back to the exhibit...

Moreno's "Four Stages of Sleep: Beta, Alpha, Delta, Theta": A touch of "Vertigo"?

This show is not merely a body of artwork. Rather, it's an illustrated "codex" (Ruben's term) of symbols, situations, and dream sequences that feel very much at home with artwork  by other surrealists, such as Rene Magritte or Salvidor Dali.  There's a philosophy, and a mystical point of view that underlies all of this work: to decipher the "code", you've just got to study the pictures. But there's mystery to it, because it's not clear to what the connections are all about.

 One of the curiosities of this show (out of many) and the incredibly long titles, which read more like paragraphs quoted from some textbook. For example, one picture shows a young man "removing" a girls heart (Aztec style?), under the Eiffel Tower at night. Paris has vanished (judging from the barren landscape typical of artwork by Dali or DeChirico), and only a few symbols remain (the hawk flying through the back of the picture is a common motif in this work).

Ruben Moreno's "The Mammalian Heart Consists of Four Chambers..."

The title of the work isn't really a title at all, but rather, a paragraph from a textbook. The title of the work shown above is "The Mammalian Heart consists of four chambers: the right and left atriums, the right and left ventricles".  

 In the image below, Moreno offers his vision of the Garden of Eden, in his painting called: "The Four Rivers of the Garden of Eden"

Figures who resemble Samuel Jackson & Lauryn Hill star in Moreno's "Four Rivers of the Garden of Eden"

Moreno's "Four Dimensions of Mindfulness"

My favorite painting in the show is called "Four Dimensions of Mindfulness".  It shows a picture of four nude figures in a forest (or is it two, standing before a mirror?) It's the one painting here that has a sense of deep space; of an environment where the viewer can step into.  I like the sense of alternate reality, or is that a door to another dimension? Plus, Moreno treats us to four unique views of four young beautiful women. What's not to like??

 When you walk into this show, and study some of the imagery, you feel as if you've walked into a maze.  I'm reminded of a classic video game called "Myst": you wake up in a mysterious place, and its up to you to figure out what's going on. Same vibe here; the more you look at it, the more you get drawn in..... Moreno's combined surrealism, with a sense of history (both his own, as well as that of pre-Colombian cultures), along with a penchant for Western Philosophy (that is, Aristotle's categories), and an obvious love of "Heavy Metal" styled illustration.  He obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this work, and planning the images, before he set down to painting them.  The end result is epic: you feel like you're in the middle of something great. 

Michael Contreras (of the Contreras Gallery) tells me that the 21 paintings on display here are only a beginning, for Ruben plans to make a total of 80 paintings in all! That could take years. And the more of this work we see, the more we'll understand...or will we? Yes, these painting ARE like the TV show LOST!

But I like the way Ruben thinks. He's thinking on an epic scale, and how all of his 80 paintings will form a monumental masterwork, that is at once surreal, dark, sad, fearful, cryptic, sentimental, stylish, honest, arty, and bold.

It's about time we had an artist who thought big! We should celebrate this emerging talent in our midst!

TPAC Open Studios preview...at Tucson Jewish Community Center

Tucson Pima Arts Council's "Open Studios" event is scheduled to start in a little over a week, where Tucson's can traipse around town to visit local artists in their natural habitat (their studios). However, TPAC and the JCC have created a sampler of that exhibit, with each artists getting to show off one piece, all in the spacious and naturally lit gallery space of the JCC. I visited the preview show this afternoon, and made some notes about some pieces that caught my eye.  The best work, I feel, is the mixed media and the fabric work. For me, that's the most interesting and creative. Those who worked in traditional mediums (that is, painting and drawing) had very conventional and "safe" work. The interesting stuff, as I just mentioned, was in the area of mixed media. Let's check it out...

The first piece that caught my eye was Genni Pell's "Nectarines with blue jar". I guess I was drawn to it's contrast, and vivid color. It looks like it's painted with a palette knife on a Masonite board.  Although the colors are nice, it's a pretty conventional painting. This is just a competent, but very safe, painting of some objects from yesteryear. But great color!

Genii Pell's painting of a Chinese vase, Cezanne's cannon balls, and a fallen flower

Aside from Genni Pell's vivid color, the first thing that jumped out at me was Martin Shaver's mixed media piece, "Drilling Down". This piece looks like a bunch of broken drywall, adhered to pieces of wire screen mesh, and attached to a board. In my mind, any broken or disrupted surface looks interesting, and the bits of color in this mound of drywall crumbs make this piece more...colorful! So here I am, a sucker for bright color again! Martin, I really like that turquoise blue!  Actually, if you linger on this piece for a few moments, you can see that the color is distributed in a pleasing way. There's a big shape of blue at the bottom (already noted a moment ago), with a lighter turquise band at across the top. there's a big white area in the upper left of this photo, which is balanced by mass of grey and brown shapes in the middle and mid-right side of this picure. Although this piece obviously looks like a "mess", closer examination finds that there is actually some order to be found in all of this! Now, the question is, did the artist plan this composition? Or is it completely accidental? We may never know...

Shaver's "Drilling Down": from trash to treasure!

Jessie Shin turns in an interesting black and white piece called "Lucid Dreaming". He says it's made with ink on clayboard, but its got a soot-like appearance, that reminds me of the some of the effects you can get when working with charcoal and water. It's got a dark, overcast, spooking feeling. Nice creatiion of dark, atmospheric ettects here:

Jessie Shin's "Lucid Dreaming"

This picture is abstract enough, where it could be anything. I like simplicity of it, and I like the gritty, moody quality of it. This artist definitely captured a mood, and created a sense of mystery...not always an easy thing to do!

One piece I really enjoyed is a stoneware piece called "Large Vessel", by Roy Lizama. I like it because it reminds me of "The Thing" from the Fantastic Four: same orange, chunky, volcanic lizard skin vibe. Although the title claims that this piece is a vessel, I can't help seeing the fist of Ben Grimm (the "Thing"). Nice!

"The Thing" from The Fantastic Four: major psoriasis ((c) Marvel Comics)

Roy Lizama's "Large Vessel". (Better title: "It's Clobberin' Time!!")

Karen Firber has nice fabric piece in this show. She calls it "Greenhouse Effect". It's a quilt, with mixed media additions to it (such as several tiny beads, and glued-on plastic baubles). The green border on the left of this work is actually a print. Most of the other elements, however, are hand sewn. Various beads have been sewn in to create the impression of a field of flowers, and a bunch of tiny blue beads Firber uses to create a "sky". The title of this piece is spelled out with big letters up in a tree (illustrated on this quilt).

Karen Firber's "Greenhouse Effect"

On the same wall as "Greenhouse Effect" is another quilted pieces that is equally as interesting! It's called "Storm's Coming", by Trish Hastings-Sargeant.  This too is a quilted piece, and it depicts a landscape with gathering clouds. I really like how Hastings has used a variety of textures and colors to create her impression of a sky. It looks like art that you can cuddle!

Trish Hasting-Seargant's "Storm's Coming"

At the far end of the gallery is a bronze sculpture of three walruses sleeping on top of each other. The artist is Kate Iverson, and she calls the piece "Uupas (Sea Peaches)".

A pile o' bronze walruses...goo goo ga joob!

Kyle Johnston has a mixed media piece here (called "As Watchers Sleep"), that evokes shades of Jasper Johns or Joseph Cornell (I'm referring to the row of doll heads at the bottom of this piece). Artwork that incorporates found objects is often very interesting from a texture standpoint. Just as a design alone, this piece has a lot working for it. Johnston did a nice job with this. Nice!

Kyle Johnston's "As Watcher's Sleep"

Artist Kurt Brill has another one of his very large sculptures in this show. This one he calls "Lisa':

Kurt Brill's "Lisa": those feet are thrice the size of her head!

One of the truely surprising works in this preview exhibit was Patricia Bischof's "Springtime in Central Park". If this piece, she's glued a bunch of paper coils to a piece of painted plywood. This work vibrates and shakes at you, like a pair of "googly eyes" glasses. I admire her chutzpah with this one...

Bischof's jiggly paper coils glued to a board!

An artist who also uses paper to create sculpture (though in a different way) is Nick Georgiou, with his paper wall sculpture called "Raging Bull". This piece shows a bulls face made with discarded books.  His work is like a new take on a Picasso-esque vibe: you're simultaneously drawn to it, and repulsed by it. The character is ugly and scary looking, but Giorgious has created it all with rolls and stacks of paper. I'm impressed with Giorgiou's creativity, resourcefulness, and humor...but how'd you like this bull creature staring at you when you're trying to go to sleep at night?? (This piece would make a great Halloween mask!)

Nick Giorgiou's "Raging Bull"

The preview exhibit at the Tucson Jewish Community Center is definitely worth a visit. Like any open studios event, there's a wide variety of syles, approaches, and artistic polish. I like how the who Open Studio's event can be sampled here, all in one room. Save on gas! No need to drive all around town! And if you plan on going around town next week, this show here at the JCC is a great first stop.