Annabel Daou at the David Winton Bell Gallery

Linguistics in contemporary art is an amalgamated concept developed to provide additional territory to the diminished landscape of the now obsolete avant-garde. It's strategically similar to other movements in the arts, which have relied heavily on the idea of removing the usual context in which an object is seen and or experienced. Putting my own artistic prejudices aside, I can see how this idea is appealing to a great number of contemporary artists; it could bring an air of authenticity to an otherwise aesthetically insolvent work of art. The science of language and its correlation to text and symbols in art has been a lengthy and intertwined one. In its simplest modern approach you could look towards Guillaume Apollinaire's Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War (1913-1916). You can follow it back all the way to Kufic script, which is said to be the oldest form of Arabic calligraphy. It's safe to say it's not anything new.

Linguistics in the context of fine art is a valid model for today's artists. There is only one condition which I would argue against it. That would be when a work of visual art lacks any understanding of beauty. I am specifically referring to the difference between Aesthetics and Taste. This idea reflects my sentiments in regard to the exhibition "KNOT" by the artist Annabel Daou. "KNOT" is currently on display at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, from January 24th through March 8th.

Annabel Daou is a Lebanese born, New York based artist. The exhibition "KNOT" is billed as a solo exhibition, but its roots are based in a collaboration project with the poet/writer Davis Markus. The title "KNOT" is clarified by curator Vesela Sretenovic in this quote: "an inherent reversibility between the text and image, reading and seeing, reflection and experience, creation and interpretation". I wish to bring to the reader's attention that this collaboration produced a plethora of artifacts. There were twelve words chosen by Markus to be visually interpreted by Daou. The twelve words produce twelve notebooks of Daou's drawings. A twelve-fold accordion brochure that renders the twelve notebooks into a single line is also a side-effect of this collaboration. The exhibition is broke up into two sections, there is a darkly lit smaller gallery at the entrance of the exhibition, that houses a single pedestal on which the twelve books are arranged; and yes, you can touch any of the twelve books. In a larger gallery there is an ambitious effort at a site-specific wall drawing. Last but not least, to bring this entire production into the 21st century, there is a website, http://www.knot2009.com/, which is a flash version of the twelve-fold accordion brochure.

One thing I noticed about the book section of the exhibition was that the books retained their sense of intimacy. The pedestal, which they were laid upon, was at the furthest point away from the entrance of the room, isolating the books with one spotlight. This, in my opinion, is a very effective technique in reinforcing the inherent sense of intimacy that is in all books. The drawings inside the books, which my traveling companion described as doodles, are just doodles. There was no aesthetic quality of beauty in Daou's scribbles or eraser marks. To me, they seemed to be manufactured with the intent of pointing directly to linguistics. Even as an object of art they are just boring to look at.

The site-specific wall drawing is anything but successful. I was told in my youth, that in order to make a great painting, you have to have a great drawing. I'm assuming this theory applies to site-specific wall drawings. In order to make a great wall drawing, you need to have great drawing. So I'm not that surprised that Daou never arrived at a great wall drawing made from her preparatory doodles. I have to admit, that the only thing I found redeeming about the actual wall drawing was the floor.
The artist's decision to paint the floor of the gallery white was successful in creating a disorientating environment. It is meant to produce a visceral response from the viewer, which it does, all the way up to the ceiling, which is in such a state of disarray that it is hard to imagine you are standing in an art gallery in an ivy-league school. I'm pretty certain that Ms. Daou did not intend for viewers to walk away from this piece wondering why the strongest reaction to the piece itself is about an area of the environment that she didn't draw on; secondly you can't take anyone very seriously if the standards by which they measure their own aesthetics are rested on inadequate craftsmanship.

Recently I realized that no one has even succeeded in taking Jackson Pollock's formalistic theory in painting to the next level. It basically ended a year before his death in 1956. Perhaps part of art's evolution is that Pollock realized that his style of painting was leading him down a dead end road, or that he had exhausted all his possibilities in painting. Historians speculate that the last year of Pollock's life he went back into the fray to find the edge again. I can't help but feel the same way about Annabel Daou's "KNOT". I keep asking myself the same questions, does the exhibition "KNOT" advance the relationship between linguistics and art? Does it even reveal a greater understanding of the idea of linguistics in contemporary artwork? Or is she, like Pollock, at the end of a dead end road?

published in issue # 99 Big Red and Shiny, PO Box 300201 Boston MA 021300

Paul Morrison, EXINE at RISD MUSEUM

Possibly the most impressive self-actualizing apparatus of the art world today is just how it manages to reinvent itself. Year after year, idiom after idiom and dialect after dialect, artists manage to find the new black and make art anew.

This idea was reintroduced to me when I heard artist Carla Gannis state in an academic lecture that her recurring theme of Jezebel is a “reconceptualizing” of the idea of Jezebel itself. I’m paraphrasing, of course. I do believe that the idea of conceptualizing something that has already been conceptualized is the clearest evidence that the artists, and the mechanisms that cultivate artists, have far too much time on their hands. Ms. Gannis may have meant to say re-contextualize, but she said “reconceptualize.” I know it’s not a word, I looked it up. It is clearly a perfect example of someone trying to reinvent something. This concept brings me to the real point of this harangue: cave painting, or should I use the re-conceptualized term for it, “Site-specific” art?

Site-specific artwork is conceived, as its name suggests, as art to fill, and or to be in, a definitive location. Sometimes, in its subcategories, it is given the title of “environmental installation,” but either way, it’s art - none the less. For me, Site-specific art introduces a shift in the paradigm about the individual work of art. What would motivate an artist to create a painting with such a narrow definition? If I was commissioned to make a permanent painting in a museum, I can honestly say it would not be about the money. It’s about immortality. It is conjecture on my part, that I even suggest that breaking from the historical method of supply and demand is artistically immoral.

Let’s take British artist Paul Morrison’s recently commissioned wall painting “Exine” at the RISD Museum. The press release informs us that “[t]he artist’s bold black-and-white wall paintings often depict botanical themes… This breathtaking composition features dramatic shifts in scale, with outsized plant life juxtaposed with a distant landscape.” All of which is accurate in its description. I will say this about the actual execution: it is painted with the skill befitting its Museum environment. Whether it’s the artist’s own hand at work here doesn’t really become an issue for me as the viewer; the painting is everything that the press release states. Aside from the flat-files along one of the walls and a large, perfectly middle-tone grey table with six chairs consuming the center of the gallery, the wall painting is a textbook example of Site-specific Art. It is clean, crisp and beautifully completed. Its high-end contrast chroma is strong enough to blend the corners of an understandably square room. Morrison clearly has a command of optical playfulness. The scale is immense and expansive without being imposing or intimidating. Only the monochromatic furniture in the gallery prevents me from wholly filling my peripheral view, which strikes a sour note in the environment Morrison created. The furniture leaves me thinking that maybe “Exine” is not so much wall painting, but wallpaper.

I don’t have a fascination for botanical themes. I won’t be evocative about Morrison’s metaphor of sporopollenin, which is “the outer layer of the wall of a pollen grain”, also known as exine. I felt a greater connection to the process than the content, and I came away with this humorous image of Morrison slaving over a wall-sized linoleum block print with a giant linoleum cutter, though I am fairly certain the artist employs both analog and digital methodology in his creative process. Judging from the quality of the painting’s implementation I would wager that the artist’s process isn’t meant to be on display, but that’s not the point of interest here.

At first I was perplexed by what would motivate a painter to create a painting with such a narrow definition You can’t take it home and hang it over the couch in the living room, and it can only be sold once. If the Museum desires another muralist at some point in the future, the preparators will just paint over “Exine” with a fresh coat of museum white. You’ll never see “Exine” at an auction house; but perhaps the preparatory documentation, like you experience in the work by Christo. Given the essentials about what I know of the history of Site-specific art, I am easing off my opinionated interpretation of what art should be. Instead I remember the word of artist Carla Gannis and her diatribe on the “reconceptualizing” of Jezebel. Then I realize Site-specific art’s invention was only the art world trying to reinvent itself, even if the “site” is a room in a museum and the work looks like that room’s wallpaper.

published in issue # 98 Big Red and Shiny, PO Box 300201 Boston MA 021300

Brain Chippendale's Human Mold @ the Stairwell Gallery

By Jon Petro

"I feel like everything I do has something to do with filling up space. I dunno, almost the way I drum is the way I draw: It's like I'm covering every little space with a beat or a hit or something." I never would have thought that this rather innocuous quotation, from the Providence, RI based uber-artist Brian Chippendale's Wikipedia entry, would bring into focus for me the idea of generational artistic influences. Over the pass several years I've tried, in vain perhaps, to define a common aesthetic quality in the art of artists from specific generations. Simply put, there are certain attributes to works of art made by artists born in the 1930's, which you will not find in the works of art created by an artists born in the 1970's. This idea may be very obvious for most people, but sometime it's hard for me to, how shall I say this, not see the forest for the trees. Take the collage artist John O'Reilly whom since the mid 1950's has been making collage and photo montages that have a direct conversation with art history; since most artists with European lineage fled Paris for New York at the onset of the WWII. It's easy to recognize that O'Reilly's sense of aesthetics suggest a superior understanding of this pedigree within the content of art. This, in my opinion, reflects a mindset of the culture of art of his generation; respectful awareness.

Fast forward to the generation whose developmental years are the 1970's, when the culture of art seemed to be played out and exhausted. At the very best, art had been reduced to an abbreviation of its former self; minimalism. It's not that far of a stretch to imagine that the youth of that time would slowly start to reflect a culture, that sociologist and author Alvin Toffler described, in the book of the same title, as "Future Shock", "The shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time." This idea of "the disease of change" I honestly feel will explain most, but not all, of my developed opinions about art created by artists from this generation. It's certainly better than just dismissing an entire age group of artists as soulless, which I have been known to do.

Brain Chippendale's "Human Mold" at the Stairwell Gallery in Providence, RI is a fertile ground to experience this theory. He could be, perhaps, the high water mark for artists born during the 70's; a Renaissance man. Chippendale is a drummer and makes music, or call it art noise. He is also fluid in printmaking, silk-screens, constructing paintings/collage and sculptures. The exhibition, which can be viewed from May 19th- June 6th, is housed in the store front gallery at the west end of Broadway Street. Poised with this new insight into of my beliefs in art, I found the exhibition to be kitsch, but in an odd way interesting, let's say it's an attempt at art as total entertainment.

As the second part of Brain Chippendale's quote suggests "it's like I'm covering every little space with a beat or a hit or something," he fills the gallery with an over abundance of art in a way that's befitting of his age. The exhibition consists of a number of paintings/ drawing/collage pieces that are part collaged, silk-screened or printed images with some Basquiat-like scribbling for good measure. The store front window is dominated by three sculptures; Catman, Funnyman and the Mushroom; these may, or may not be all one sculpture since they were listed separately on the gallery's price sheet. Chippendale is a predicatively consistent artist, not only throughout this exhibition, but also with his choice of imagery; that's where the silk-screen/printing comes into play. But the three sculpture pieces are interestingly life-size, or maybe it's just the modest size of the gallery giving in to the scale of the sculptures which is a crucial element for me. Whether or not what appears to be a papier-mâché sculpture, with magic marker scribbled on, is executed with the intent to fulfill formal issues of sculpture, I would say really isn't the point. Funnyman's bodily proportions are ever so much carelessly rendered, whereas Catman's proportions seem to be far more believable. So gauging from these two aesthetic positions, it's anyone's guess if Chippendale understands human anatomy. Once again I don't think this is what he getting at. Honestly I just like the fact that they're big enough to make you mindful of these things as you take in the rest of the exhibition.

The predominate content in the "Human Mold" exhibition is humor, which I believe is executed with a complementary style; even if I have no idea what the inside joke is about. It's energetic and colorful if only with the sense of a rudimentary understanding of primary colors. More importantly it's over-saturated. For this generation the race is on. It may be the most ambitious show this season in Providence; but it's not really connected to anything other than itself. If I read this generation correctly it doesn't fucking matter; right, isn't that the credo? Needless to say Brain Chippendale is very good at what he does; and he does quite a bit of it; so maybe it's the quantity over quality which I've noticed. But what I feel to be the incomparable truth about this showing of work is the fact that humor has replaced some of the other attributes of fine art, which was marginalized by the art world in the decade of the seventies in the name of progress, which by no means has the multi-talented Chippendale had a hand in, "or something.".

published in issue # 84 Big Red and Shiny, PO Box 300201 Boston MA 021300

Sean Micka @ Judi Rotenburg

By Jon Petro

The Newbury Street art scene is pedestrian by location and concept. By which I mean, it’s neither dead or alive; it simply exists because of what it once was. It rarely shows any type of art that would be relative to the cutting edge. If Newbury Street was all-encompassing, then 450 Harrison Avenue would have never happened. This idea is not exclusive to the Boston art scene; Soho gave way to Chelsea and, to a lesser degree, the latter to Williamsburg and the lower east side. It is a prevalent scenario when a secondary art market is masquerading as a primary market. I only present this opinion because I never hear anyone openly talking about it. We all know it exists; we just don’t want to believe it to be true.

I’ve developed a similar opinion of Sean Micka “After Images” at Judi Rotenberg Gallery on view till February 3rd. His paintings are Minimalism in vernacular and fashionable by decorum. There is an entire new generation of artists who attempt to carry on the ideas put forth by the forefathers of Minimalism. The only issue I take with this wave of current day minimalism is its “Jackson Pollock Syndrome”, as I like to call it. When an artist or a student discovers Pollock paintings for the first time and realizes just how simple a Pollock painting can be to execute, paradoxically you end up with a stylistically accurate painting but one that lacks the historical content or importance of the original. It is the one guaranteed experience from today’s artistic academic institutions, alongside the dreaded student loans.

“Reductive Art is generally characterized by its use of plainspoken materials, monochromatic or limited color, geometry and pattern, repetition and seriality, precise craftsmanship, and intellectual rigor.” The quote comes from the about section of the website www.minusspace.com; it is a manifesto of some sorts that, in my opinion, acutely defines contemporary minimalism.

Sean Micka easily fits into the category of Reductive Art. Micka’s narrowly optically green monochromatic painting titled “Greenscreen” is made up of 4 30” X 40” texture-free pure green canvases, with an inch or so of white border. As can be expected, the green paint has a subtle shift in value on the edges making the painting somewhat bow in a kind of vignette effect, the 4 panels are hung together horizontally giving you a total size of 40” X 120”. There is a companion painting hanging one wall away, "Bluescreen” 48" x 144" with the same type of execution. Keep in mind that an important component to this idea of conceptual art, in this minimalist application, is the choices the artist makes. I notice that the sizes of each panel, in both of these paintings, are somewhat standardized. On closer inspection I can see that the canvases are hand built, so I’m left wondering if the standardized size was a choice based on necessity or some other quality unbeknownst to the viewer. Given the limited visual components of minimalism, and Micka’s somewhat ambiguous attempt at conceptualism, the exhibition has a very fast start and little else. The visual experience is perhaps all a viewer has; so whether you see “Greenscreen”, or "Bluescreen”, there really isn’t much difference to the experience. This apparent similarity of visual experience is consistent through out “After Images”. Even when Micka flexes his historical familiarity by painting the many styles of Minimalism you end up at the same place visually. “After Images”, as an exhibition, over-all lacks interest or edge. I will not deny that “Greenscreen”, or "Bluescreen” are painted well, but so many other painters have done this very thing before him.

Conceivably all contemporary fine art is capable of being “conceptual”; we’ve come to believe this as fact. The conceptual quandary inherent to Micka’s paintings is this: why would you create paintings that are nostalgic for art that lacks emotional content? Of all the limited components to Micka’s painting, why would you make the choice to add a quality that is diametrically apposed to the tenets of Minimalism? So it’s an issue of inconsistency for me. Maybe it’s the right artist at the wrong time? Or the wrong style at the right gallery, either way there really isn’t anything about this exhibition that would enable a viewer to pick Micka’s paintings out of a crowd.

So why is Don Hartmann making paintings?

by Jon Petro

When is it a valid function of expression to make art, painting in this case, that acts as anti-art, or anti-painting? This question, aside from being an entry-level reflection of 20th century French existentialism, also pertains to Don Hartmann's current exhibition "Heads & Tales" at MPG Contemporary. An answer can be formulated from several different points of view; I'll answer it pragmatically. Anti-painting will always exist as long as there is painting to rebel against. In fact you can view anti-painting as a style itself in contemporary terms. There is a proud tradition of rebellion in painters throughout the history of painting; the French Impressionists rebelled against the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the American abstract expressionist had had enough of American social realism, the list grows with each passing generation. Most recently you can find this succession of dissent in England with the art movement called "Stuckism". It's a group of British artists, founded by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson, rebelling against the Young British Artists. These Stuckists prefer fugitive art over the commercialized Saatchi Gallery type conceptual art. So it's a noble idea that Hartmann is rebelling. In casual conversations with Hartmann, over the course of a few years, he has repeatedly stated that he is not a painter, but a sculptor. So why is Don Hartmann making paintings?

Don Hartmann's history with the MPG Contemporary began with a "NEW ART" competition for emerging artists in 2005, resulting in a solo exhibition "Paintings of Personality & Estrangement" later the same year. This is Hartmann's second 2 person show at the MPG. I am a fan of Hartmann's earlier paintings, before his 3 years of tutelage under Michael Price. We've all heard those stories about signing a representation contract with a gallery and then everything changes. Or maybe it's just the simple fact that when I first became aware of Hartmann's painting he had just given up sculpture and had no experience with the medium of paint. In fact painting only becomes difficult, or a challenge, to an artist when he or she actually figures out how a great painting is made. From that point on it's not about being an outsider, conceptual, or even post-modern artist. It's about being a painter.

Style is regularly referred to in terms of how paint is applied to a canvas, or in this case Hartmann's wood panels. The initial quality in his painting is an angst-ridden, youthful sense of draftsmanship, similar to what you would find in a young high school boy's notebook. Hartmann's paintings speak more to a quality of black magic-marker outlines rather than the richness of oil paint, or in any tradition of rendering three-dimensional spaces. It's hard not to notice that the composition of "Burnt Toast" (oil and acrylic on panel, 48" x 48", 2007) could easily be compared to any of the Impressionist painters' techniques of closely cropping the painting's subject. Hartmann places a female figure just right of center, her face and eyes occupy the top right third of the picture plane with the figure's eyes leering out to her left, far beyond the viewer. Her right, club-like hand extended out, holding something that may or may not be an oven mitt, is cropped by the left edge of the painting. The figure is dressed in a see-through teddy that reveals her two black-outlined red nipples, which I suggest was chosen to imply some form of sexual tension, but it comes off as cheeky. The painting's real tension comes from the figure touching every edge of the picture plane. This simple compositional device leaves the viewer no other choice but to have to deal with this image, however garish it may be. That is what is truly interesting in this painting. As for his use of color, well, flat color never hurt anyone, but it's not Hartmann's strongest suit. You start to see a very plastic sense of color, but his palette is constantly muted or muddy, which in my opinion is holding the work back from greater appeal.

The least austere interpretation is that Hartmann is playing the quasi-outsider card, which is fine but only can be taken so far. Art History has shown us that outsider art stays outsider art. The stylistic narrowness of outsider art hasn't stopped the commercial fine art world from taking the term and turning it into a cottage industry for everything imaginable. That's twisted enough to earn my suspicion. I would never refer to outsider art as a mainstream art movement or a genuine art phenomenon, but yet there is an annual Outsider Art Fair in New York. So just how outside is that? Personally, I'm weary of artistic labels, oftentimes finding myself at odds with an art world that is infatuated with the idea of style. Shouldn't the viewing public be demanding substance over style? The one thing I will say about this exhibition is that it's not the product of someone who is unaware. This leads me to consider that after three years, and as many commercial exhibitions that someone might not be an outsider anymore. I suggest you see it and judge for yourself.

America's Paradise Gone Wild!

By Jon Petro

"America's Paradise' and 'Isla Del Encanto': Contemporary Art from the
American Caribbean" is currently on view at the Grossman Gallery in The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is a thematic group exhibition, containing over 20 varying types of artworks, from 12 emerging and established American Caribbean artists addressing the issue of the myth of paradise. As the exhibition's brochure points directly to "issues of identity, migration, and the complex economic, political, and social relationships with the U.S…" and an "often angst-filled conversation..." the exhibition offers a small and narrow view in content and in style, of life under the motto "America's Paradise". There is a certain antiseptic vibe that can be found in most academic exhibitions. You come to except a level of professionalism combined with rhetoric at this type of event. Since an exhibition without commercial concerns can hardly be viewed in terms of America's capitalistic intent, an artist and curator can claim just about anything. Even though my aesthetic expectations are fulfilled on an academic level with the exhibition "America's Paradise" it still seems somewhat blemished. If the theme of this show is innocence lost due to consumerism, tourism, and misguided capitalism why aren't these artists offering us any creative solutions, rather than just complaints?

What struck me as odd about bringing together 12 artists working against "geo-political clichés about their homeland" is that, 9 of the 12 artists represented have been educated in the United States, not the Caribbean. Not one artist in this exhibition truly reflects the home-grown art of the Caribbean; there is only a hint at it stylistically. When did the contemporary art world become so gentrified? If this show was all indigenous Caribbean art, in context, would anyone in the contemporary art world really be interested? I see the need to become involved in the global dialogue of art, but I also feel that the culture of victim-hood isn't doing these artists any good. At first I thought this exhibition would have been a perfect vehicle to decry the ills of Globalization, but given its milieu, the Museum School, there doesn't seem to be any need to make that point. I can't help but be suspicious of an artist's sincerity in the ideas of art. Artists with comparable technical skills will grandstand current events and content to advance their careers. The funny part about it is this is how the business of art is done now globally, or should I say trans-nationally?

SMFA Curator Joanna Soltan writes about artist Rafael Trelles, "… he creates politically-charged pieces that, as he says, aim to "influence the spheres of politics, economy, and anthropology, among others."…". Trelles is perhaps the most established artist represented in the exhibition. The life-sized painting "Self-portrait after Paret" 2007, which is an homage to Spanish Painter Luis Paret y Alcázar's 1776 "Self-portrait", created by Trelles is an attempt at this concept. Its background is a purple/yellow pastel complimentary color scheme depicting an urban cityscape, rendered in an outline fashion with a darker earth tone. Then Trelles makes use of a towel or a wet rag to create the mid tones by padding the whole canvas with a paint loaded towel creating a transparent repetitive abstract pattern; much like a faux decorative painter would do. It seems to have all the material possessions of contemporary civil society; cars, multi-story dwellings, telephone poles and modern sewers. The foreground contains Trelles as Paret with two baby lambs; one of the lambs is balanced on a walking cane, held in his right hand, over his left shoulder. The second lamb is at Trelles' bare feet with its throat cut, by the sword in his left hand. He is a competent painter in his choice of style. I must stress that I use the word style and not content with all that it implies. There is a certain stiffness to this painting that I attribute to the fact the artist was working from a reproduction. For me, the symbolism of the painting is straight forward. The two lambs represent the USA and Puerto Rico, Trelles place of birth; I would suggest that Trelles believes one of these two locations has been sacrificed for the greater good of Capitalism and or the American way.

In juxtaposition to the projected righteousness of Rafael Trelles' art are the more sublime sculptures of Lucas Gasperi. He is a little more sentimental in his approach to the idea of innocence lost, which is represented by 4 small (8" X 6" X 1 ½") wall relief pieces and one pedestal sculpture that are a combination of small stones, sea shells, concrete and gesso. Gasperi's artwork has an organic fossil-like presence and is monochromatic by nature, which by hanging on the wall questions the very nature of sculpture itself. I get the impression he's working in an attempt to preserve his idea of America's Paradise. I reacted positively to these pieces because they relate closer to the process of art rather than to the provocation of one political point of view. I'm not in general a big fan of sculpture, or let's say mixed media, but with all the bellicose and chest-pounding coming off the other walls in the gallery it's just nice to hear someone whispering to get your attention.

Just as Rafael Trelles employs selective filters such as artistic historical larceny, along with his own ancestry to arrive at his working political motif, and I have chosen to not include the other 10 of the 12 artist in this exhibition to be able to question Trelles ideals. I have only once in my life witnessed any realpolitik art that was genuine. I'm not using the term in its pejorative sense. That work is Maya Ying Lin, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. It fulfills every aspect of what art should and can be. No one is confused after witnessing the memorial; you simply just understand the magnitude of that expression. Just because I disagree with the function of Rafael Trelles' political art as a form of art itself, that doesn't mean I am viewing his works with my eyes closed, well maybe just my mind's eye. Imbued with a little common sense I believe anyone can make their way back to their own idea of America's Paradise, or at the very least manage to recreate what they think they've lost. After all, America's streets are paved with gold and Rafael Trelles understands this all too well.

It wouldn't be fair to expect me to write about art that isn't visual. For me conceptual art is all about 1917 and Duchamp. It is not the watered-down version in which we witnessed the Young British Artists ascend to significant unimportance in the early 1990's when they used the idiom as a euphemism for the avant garde. I understand and therefore respect the historical aspects of Conceptual Art, which is the idea-based art of the 60's and 70's. Just imagine how treacherous it was for an artist to abandon the visual components of fine art to maintain an all too necessary style of the cutting edge. It is this premise, the absence of a strong visual component, that makes my daily inquisitive lust for art wobble with boredom. In the same breath I am completely at a loss as to how this idea of conceptual art manages to leave little droppings of artifacts for my viewing displeasure. I am quite aware of how this argument sounds like George Dickie's idea of the Institutional Theory of Art; which in a nutshell is defined as art existing due to its position in the art world. But if it is indeed conceptual art, why is it trapped in an object that has no inherent aesthetic value? Sorry, I just don't find the banality of craftsmanship all that interesting or thought provoking. It is, after all, a visual art experience, no? Museums of Contemporary Art are foundations for the temporal display of objects of art. So is this type of museum the best environment for these artifacts that lack a visual component?

It is these ideas that I am annoyed by after my experience with "Spencer Finch: What Time Is It on the Sun?" on display at Mass MoCA, in North Adams, Ma through the spring of 2008. The exhibit consists of over 40 groupings of art, 160 individual pieces in total, and 4 of which the press-release states as major new works. It is a fairly common occurrence to enter Mass MoCA's galleries to discover signage stating, "object of art temporarily not functioning ". This happens to be the case with Finch's "Composition in Red and Green." This object of art is a long, motorized, chute device, maybe 30 feet in length, suspended from the ceiling on an angle and is loaded with fresh apples that are dropped every few minutes or so, onto a 20 foot square of Astro Turf. Ok, I guess I'm supposed to be profoundly moved by the title's implication that this object has the ability to produce an unthinkable number of variations over the life-expectancy of the exhibition. But it's the smell of rotten apples that I'm left with, literally. I can't imagine who at Mass MoCA thought it would be a good idea to leave this work up and not repair it. It is important to note that this issue is a contemporary one, a defective finished product of art, which ultimately diminishes the quality of a museum experience, but also calls into question whether or not this artifact is actually a work of art. Is a broken conceptual work of art, still a work of art? If I don't witness the work of art in process will I still be able to conceptualize it? With its function no longer following its form is it conceptually insolvent? This Newtonian apparatus has all the trappings of art by association; it's in a Museum, it belongs to someone's collection of art, and it provokes me to think. I contemplate just how poorly this object of art is made. I wonder if the artist feels any sense of responsibility, or if the artist really cares about it at all?

Is it contrast or contradiction? In Susan Gross' essay "Spencer Finch Alchemy", Gross states, "contrary to what one might expect, Finch's efforts toward accuracy - the precise measurements he takes under different conditions and at different times of day - resist, in the end, a definitive result or single empirical truth about his subject." At first I thought this idea was conceived to justify Finch's syntax, which it does. It's definitely propaganda. The more I thought about this idea the less it appeared to be logical, it seemed to contradict itself. If your art is principally about the process why would you invest time in an endeavor that yields no results? Finch, in theory, could have just swept the floors of Mass MoCA and gotten the same results. It simply wouldn't make any difference, so why is it a stipulation to believe it does, which is where the contradiction lies.

I am under the firm belief that the work of Spencer Finch is neither exciting, nor innovating. Where I venture next will come as no surprise, is Finch's art good? No, not in my opinion, but it is art; just not the type of art I find compelling. I put an honest amount of thought into the ideas expressed by Finch in this exhibition, at the very least equal to the amount Finch applied to his craft. I was so dissuaded by the idea of contemporary conceptual art that if I never saw another hypothetical work of art again I'd be fine.

published in issue # 68 Big Red and Shiny, PO Box 300201 Boston MA 02130

By Jon Petro

I've been fortunate enough to fulfill one of my dreams while only took a couple jabs to the jaw from writers who actually get paid to write about art. The "Big Bang Abstract Painting for the 21st Century" exhibit has been written about in every major publication of any real interest. At the very least, my work has been introduced to an entirely new class of viewers. I have always been careful not to claim that the premise of my painting was based in any type of 21st century concept or technology. I just assumed that because I am making abstract paintings in the 21st century, they belong to the 21st century. I've made reference to some issues that concern the 21st century in my titles, but my analysis of title objectivity isn't included in this diatribe; that's another story.

At the end of the day, painting is still just painting; it's moving liquid emulsion around on a canvas, and for me, it's done with a very small brush over and over again. That's what I do. I have maintained the position that my current expedition into abstract painting is a process-oriented endeavor. Now whether that's an important thing historically or not isn't really any of my concern. That type of egotism is usually better left up to the people who don't make art, but just try to categorize it.

In the fall of 2005, when I was first contacted by Nick Capasso, curator from the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, about making a studio visit, I had a hard time containing my emotions. The one thing that still bewilders me about the process is just how alien it really is; there isn't any class you can take that explains it. I had to rely on the generous advice from a few of my contemporaries; who are further along in their careers than I. It was a weird, strange trip based on a handful of qualities that I couldn't define or articulate in a sentence. The real joke is that Nick stood me up on our first scheduled studio visit. After a year of emails, voice mails and studio visits, what I thought to be only a dream had, in fact, become a reality. In the end it was my fate to be included with 14 other artists, from New England, to represent what Nick believed to be a loosely-connected thematic trend in art that defined abstract painting for the 21st century.

Email from Xxxxx Xxxxxx, features editor, ArtScope Magazine 11/17/2007

"Hi Jon,

Unfortunately, ArtScope's overdosed [my italics] on DeCordova coverage over our first five issues - they've gotten more than any other institution up to this point - so it's fairly unlikely I'd be able to do anything on your show. Has your Clark show opened yet? I haven't heard anything from them about it.

Thanks,

Xxxxx Xxxxxx, features editor"

Looking back now, I really should have found out more about this features editor and bought him a bottle of something or took him out for dinner; you just never know in this business. What I find absurd about this correspondence is just how narrow-minded this publication is in its own sense of importance. I can't comprehend how any publication could pass on any major museum exhibition, let alone one in your back yard. In the interest of full disclosure, I had approached Artscope with the idea of doing a profile of myself, more than once. So is this email response reflecting the features editor's personal feelings or that of the greater good of the magazine? Finally, the magazine ended up writing a well-deserved feature about Stephen DiRado, whose exhibition "Jump" is also running during the same time period as "The Big Bang" at the DeCordova. The magazine also did a feeble preview of "The Big Bang". So much for being "overdosed [once again, my italics] on DeCordova coverage".

Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century. The DeCordova Explodes with Cosmic Sci-fi Stoner Art

Jason Feifer, the DIG Issue 9.4, 01/24/2007

"There are Jon Petro's large canvases, overrun with palm-sized swirls, naked in their tediousness." This quote reflects the state of art criticism today, in only the most jejune sense. So what does "… naked in their tediousness." really mean? I understand what it implies, but I don't know if the adverb tediousness is a quality of genuine art criticism. This is yet another preview, not an authentic analysis of art. Every thing in Jason Feifer's article comes off as retribution for when Feifer made a bad choice to take a class taught by "Two excitable professors…", "…I found their enthusiasm a little sickening…" These quotes should give you an assessment of Feifer's integrity. "…It sounded sweeping and pretentious, but I figured that, at the very least, the workload would be low." (once again my italics) Judging from this article it isn't really based in an argot of art history, which is all too often symptomatic of this type of publication.

Email from Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx, Curatorial Fellow, DeCordova Museum, 01/25/2007

"Dear Big Bang Artists:

A lot of interest with the press. I'm including a link to the article published in the Boston Phoenix, plus the show was selected as a critics' pick by Ken Johnson in Sunday's Boston Globe with an image in the calendar section.

Best,

Xxxx"

Ah, Painting! At the DeCordova, Abstraction is New Again,

By Greg Cook, the Boston Phoenix 01/29/2007

Cook's review reads like a sophomoric attempt at art criticism; I really expected more from him. I've read his other reviews, which I found more interesting than this one. Cook doesn't really say anything new about abstract painting, in any century, which is why I believe that most viewers are uninformed about this faction of painting. By grouping the Big Bang artists to a Jackson Pollock model "painting also inevitably calls up associations to its long history. The most pervasive - and surprising - correspondence in these artists is to Jackson Pollock's famous drip paintings." Cook offers very little more in terms of critical analysis about this exhibition. Perhaps I'm the only artist in the group with any real self-indulgence in the Pollock vain; not just in his sense of consumption. Pollock's essence is about the fact that he becomes the trees, he isn't painting them, and that's the point of a Pollock. Keep in mind that artists, unlike humans, aren't create equal and the individual artists in this exhibition weren't chosen for their similarities, but for their differences within the realm of abstract painting, a point that is grossly overlooked by everyone that wrote about the exhibition.

Seeing a Pattern: From Cosmology to Geology, Science Inspires Abstract Art at DeCordova

By Ken Johnson, the Boston Globe, 02/02/2007

"Making art appear more meaningful and relevant by relating it to some other field of study is a strategy that's become all too common among artists and curators of the postmodern era." Although factual in its concept, it leaves out one major group from its list of participants. That would be the group that includes Johnson, the critics. If I've learned anything in the past few years in this business, it is that without art to write about Johnson would be out of a job. Critics by nature are somewhat parasitic. He does refer to my work as "routinized additive process" so he's not far off the mark. I've read other reviews by Johnson, when he was still in his zenith writing for the New York Times; he doesn't seem to have any real interest in abstract painting. His genuine sense of disgruntlement seems to come from being your basic New Yorker. I do come away from reading this review with an idea that it's more of a rebuke to Nick Capasso, and the concept of the show, than of any individual artist in the group.

I'm left feeling suspicious about the written media experience. I don't, for one moment, believe that anything that was printed about the show is honest, or sincere in its sense of criticism. All of the comments about the show seem unusually similar to me, so what are the odds that everyone has correctly criticized the show? I believe that the most articulate in the group of writers is Ken Johnson, and I do think he is correct in his assumption that this exhibition is "... a snapshot of a certain kind of generic present-day abstraction." I wouldn't use the term "generic", but it's not my quote. I'm fairly confident that this train of thought has more to do with Boston not being a principal art market, but instead is one saturated in its own sense of academia, rather than the cutting edge. More importantly, it's almost impossible to write a history in the present tense, which if you are familiar with the history art you'd understand that abstract painting is still in its infancy. As my 15 minutes of Museum status fades, I'm still left in marvel by the whole experience. Regardless of what anyone thinks about me, or my work there is one thing that remain a fact, that I was invite to exhibit at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, and everyone wrote about it, even me!

Published in Blank Canvas Magazine, Issue # 8; April 2007 P.O. Box 70587 Worcester, MA 01607

KENRO IZU @ ROBERT KLEIN GALLERY

By Jon Petro

The human eyes consist of two different types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, which send information to the brain for interpretation. The rods number in the 120 million and are far more sensitive than their counter–part, the cones. The interesting part of human anatomy is that the rods are not in any way sensitive to color. The job of color function is left to the 7 million or so cones. This small little understanding of how the human eyes function may shed some light, no pun intended, on why I prefer black and white, or monochromatic, photography to color. At a recent opening reception in Providence RI, a RISD professor explained to me that a glass of wine will sharpen the ability of the rods and cones to perceive lights and darks. Wine, mmmm. I’m sure the above information is a factor in why I’m so attracted to the Kenro Izu exhibition, Nudes and Still Lifes at Robert Klein Gallery on Newbury Street.

My first experience with the work of Kenro Izu was last winter at theGriffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, MA. Izu’s cyanotype over platinum palladium prints were included in the museum’s The Body Familiar: Current Perspectives of the Nude exhibition. Izu’s fine art career is only 50% of his work. From the looks of his website his commercial work as a photographer seems to be just as sought after.

Born in Osaka, Japan, he relocated to New York City in the 1970’s. In 1983 Izu committed to working in the contact-printed platinum palladium process for the next two decades. In 2002 Izu developed his cyanotype over platinum palladium process. The platinum palladium process is noted for being a very stable method of processing photographs.

Izu’s current exhibition Nudes and Still Lifes is a variation of the exhibition titled “Blue” which was first assembled in 2004 for the Howard Greenberg Gallery (NYC); then exhibited at Galleria Carla Sozzani (Milan), and finally shown at Shimose Fine Art (Tokyo). The noticeable difference here is an exploration of different subject matter with the inclusion of four platinum palladium landscape prints and five still life cyanotype platinum palladium prints. The four landscapes reveal a more traditional side to Izu’s photography; they reflect the quality that is the standard with all fine art black and white photography.

I can’t help but make some type of association with the cyanotype prints. Whether it is the nudes or the still lifes, the photographs have an undercurrent of sentimentality that seems familiar. It puzzled me at first. Then I realized I was associating the cyanotype prints with Picasso’s blue period (1901-1904). Picasso’s Femme Nue II, from 1902, could have easily been the inspiration for Izu’s “Blue #1010b, 2004; which is number 5 of an edition of 10. Both the Izu print and Picasso painting share the same primary composition. A female nude placed in the center of the picture plane, with legs crossed, back towards the viewer, with the upper torso leaning forward between the crossed legs.

The obvious difference with the two pieces is that Picasso understood what he could accomplish with paint; Picasso in the most direct way is a totally narcissistic painter. As for Izu, it seems to be the subtlety in tonal contrast that matters as much as the traditional subject matter he has chosen. It could also be that Izu understands his target audience. What’s interesting to note is that 4 of the 10 prints of Blue #1010B were sold; maybe other viewers have also had made the connection to Picasso’s Femme Nue II”

It would be hard to fathom, or even separate, the ideas of art as commerce and art as artifact. For some artists, such as Kenro Izu, it’s a natural and seamless bridge between the two ideas. Bear in mind that real life ebbs and flows just as the art market does. An artist will tell you that at the end of the day you have to pay the bills, so if you’re a proficient technician, such as Izu is, you transcend the commercial content and still produce a genuine product without turning yourself into a street walker. Man Ray worked commercially in the 1920’s for Vogue Magazine, without hampering or sabotaging his artistic sensibility or legacy.

JOE WARDWELL @ ALLSTON SKIRT

By Jon Petro

Onanism is the act of self-gratification practiced by millions of people everyday. So if an artist chooses to bring his fetish to the venue of fine art, wouldn’t you expect to see art that reflects the true quality of that fetish? Joe Wardwell’s solo exhibit Full Length at the Allston Skirt Gallery is an attempt at such masturbatory grandeur.

This exhibit consists of four different components. Wardwell’s debut LP album Full Length, a lo-fi production completely self-composed and recorded. An installation of 40-plus sepia drawings representing preliminary studies for his paintings, pushpinned to the main gallery wall and bookmarked by a home stereo system continually playing his LP album. An assortment of paintings varied in size depicting the final resting place of rock stars doing their thing in heaven. Finally there is what the gallery calls a zine, an artistic manifesto. It is a seven page explanation of the artist’s influences, dreams, lusts. One odd characteristic of this manifesto is that it is written entirely in capital letters, its funny how a few years of text messaging and now the use of capital letters boils down to yelling at you.

If you look at this exhibition from a conceptual point of view, rather than its aesthetics, you’ll find that Wardwell spent some time contemplating his choices. He’s certainly intellectual enough for the stage of Fine Art. His ideas are well thought out. The stumbling block for me is Wardwell’s subject matter. What type of audience is interested in the kitsch of rock and roll stars? Is the reality of a rock stars life tasteless enough, don’t they deserve to be left alone? Maybe the reason why Wardwell’s is generating interest is because the viewers are living vicariously through the art or the artist, who’s doing the same thing with the rock star; which is the creep side of this fetish. The bottom line is moving commodities, whether it is conceptual or monetary Joe Wardwell has contemplated every possible idea. One man’s fetish is another man’s commodity fetishism.

I made 2 passes through the front end of the gallery and finally concluded that Wardwell was trying to make intentionally self-conscious studies of rock stars in a post-baroque style of art. Some of the studies in the installation portion of this exhibit were so sophomorically rendered that I realized that there must some underlining inside joke to this work, honestly it eluded me. You have to deal with the fact that the artist is trying to represent himself as a bit naive. Wardwell states, in his zine, rather absolutely that “NOW WITH A MASTER OF FINE ART”…, so you know he was been subjected to some form of academia and perhaps that is why he’s exhibiting. I would almost prefer that he didn’t know how to draw, and then at least the work maintain its cheap appeal.

The obvious reference about Joe Wardwell’s drawings is that they have a similar sense of execution to the work of Elizabeth Peyton. There is nothing wrong with emulating someone else’s work, the contemporary art industry is one of pilfering by nature, but in this context imitation isn’t the highest form of flattery. They may even be born from similar ideas but end up in very different places. Both painters share a similar impression of celebrity-ism, the only difference is that Peyton’s clumsiness transcends most of the trappings of being a celebrity and starts to suggest the idea of androgyny. Whereas in Wardwell’s work it contains a sense of the perfunctory, mechanical if you like. Peyton seems to be more interested in exploring the commonalities of her subjects, and Wardwell’s fixation comes off as self-absorbed.

With his integration of the concept of Rococo art, Wardwell buys a little bit of street credibility, adding a level of seriousness to art work that could easily be written off as decorative. In his larger square paintings the repetitiveness of his structural composition, one large circle touching all four edges of the canvas to define the pictorial foreground, is anything but visually tense; it is really a difficult to create a strong painting on a weak foundation. This composition appear oddly familiar, after a few moments of contemplation it dawned on me, it’s source was the wear marks that are created on an album cover by the record placed inside for protection and then stacked together.

To understand the true nature of rock and roll, you need to keep in mind that most great rock songs are 3 chord progressions and nothing more, pure and simple. The punk rock movement was born out of frustration with the 70’s corporate music industry, by disenfranchised youth with no musical talent. This exhibition keeps in step with that philosophy of punk rock.

PAINTING SUMMER IN NEW ENGLAND @ THE PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM

by JON PETRO

I went to see Katz. Honestly, I really did. The single, self-serving reason I drove to the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, MA, was to see a panoramic painting by the artist Alex Katz. I don’t know what else to say, I just really dig this guy’s paintings. As for the importance of Katz as an artist today, I have one word to define it: consistency. Alex Katz has managed to sustain a 51 year career in an industry that suffers from a textbook case of ADHD. Without Katz’s exploration into portraiture the art world would have never been fertile ground for artists such as George Condo, Dana Schutz, and Boston’s own Don Hartmann.

The painting I went to see was Harbor #9, oil on canvas, dated 1999. It is 96 inches tall and 240 inches wide. The idea that Katz’s process led him to paint 9 of these harbor paintings, as the title suggests, was enough to make me pause and wonder about the artist’s state of mind. What couldn’t Katz say in the first painting that he could in #9, which is just one of more than 100 works by 82 artists currently on view at the Peabody Essex Museum’s exhibition entitled Painting Summer in New England (PSNE).

You have to give a round of applause to the guest curator, Trevor Fairbrother, for the way in which he handles not only the scale of the exhibition, but also the content. The placement of two paintings in particular brought to my attention this curator’s understanding of how to connect paintings. The two pieces in question are stylistically a hundred years apart, but hang side by side. James Edward Butterworth’s painting is “Yacht Race off Boston Light”, dated 1880 and Paul Resika’s The End of the Hurricane, is from 1979. Butterworth’s Yacht Race off Boston Light is a realistically painted maritime narrative with a schooner cutting through a deep green ocean, while Resika’s The End of the Hurricane is an expressive gestural painting that depicts the moment when the sky releases all the built up tension after a hurricane. Both paintings have a loosely similar palette and a proportionate relation in physical size. A viewer might make the connection that both of these paintings, although representing different styles, are speaking about a specific moment in time. An astute viewer, however, would realize that Fairbrother also chose to be involved; the curator consciously places these two paintings next to one another, becoming an active participant in the continuation of the theme of time.

PSNE is laid out over five separate galleries encompassing the entire third floor of the museum. When you think that you’re at the end of the show, there seems to always be one more gallery just ahead of you. At this point I need to openly admit to a long-standing suspicion, it’s what I like to call “The Big Name Museum Show Syndrome”. It’s when a museum designs an exhibition around a few works of art by a famous or almost famous artist that, coincidentally, my mother would like.

I’ll go as far as to argue that the traditional role of a museum as a steward of culture, a place where artifacts are stored, has been replaced with the idea that a museum is now in the position of one that defines culture, confirming the idea that fine art is truly elitist, all the way to the bank. Much to my surprise, the gift shop is located nowhere near any of the galleries at the Peabody Essex Museum. If the exhibition you’re viewing – with or without the assistance of an audio device, its sole purpose being to guide the viewer – ends at the front door of the Museum’s gift shop, you should be suspicious. (In that circumstance I try, whenever possible, to see the show in reverse.)

Tyson Reeder: Fashion or Art Star?

By Jon Petro

I was told recently that America is suffering from a cultural deficit; that we, as a society, lack the ability to understand and appreciate the language of art. At first I thought this statement might be correct, given how much I truly detest all the idiotic hype, the blatant marketing and the basic lack of aesthetics that directly reflects our contemporary art world. I think that there must be more to what is happening in New York City and in the art world in general. Just walking around Chelsea and Williamsburg, you get the feeling that the art culture isn't really in a deficit, it might have just shifted into another gear. The art world today looks more like it's the fashion world. I don't mean it's fashionable to be an artist, which has always been true, it is fashion and its sensibility that's becoming a noticeable quality in works of art. Keep in mind I am not stating there is a moral crisis in the arts, but maybe we're at the start of something different. This brings me to the painter who is creating quite a buzz in New York City, Tyson Reeder. Born in Fairfax, Virginia Reeder now lives and works in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended The University of Minnesota and the Art Center College of Art and Design M.F.A. Program. Tyson Reeder is what Jerry Saltz, from the Village Voice calls an "Art Star".

The first time I experienced the work of Tyson Reeder was at his latest solo show in Chelsea, June 3rd-July 1st at Daniel Reich Gallery on 537A West 23rd St, NYC. I immediately started to feel that visceral sense of tension and discomfort, which occurs when I view art work that's authentic. Due to extenuating circumstances I didn't stay at the gallery long enough to really get an understanding of why I was reacting this way to Reeder's painting. I did get to return at a later date, only to have my initial impression validated by a thorough examination of the exhibition.

I have to mention that I don't necessarily believe that Reeder's style of painting is one that you would find in my own collection of art. But as I acknowledged earlier, there is artistic value to what Tyson Reeder is doing, or I wouldn't have had such a gut reaction to his work. If I had to sum up Reeder's painting with one word it would be "soft". However, I consider this characteristic more indicative of his choice of medium, not of his obviously simplistic choice of subject matter. His media consists of paper mounted on board, gouache, watercolors, acrylic paint, pencils, multi-colored pens, fabric dyes, bleach, paper plates and index cards. I get the impression that his painting, "Van", 35"x24", is all about rhythm and patterns. The echoes of roof tops and the buildings of Tyson's home town lend themselves perfectly to his technique. This painting may not be about the primary image, an orange and yellow van with flat tires in the lower left hand corner. It may just be a very nerdy abstract painting and the way the artist gets the viewer to engage with the painting is the artist's non-confrontational mid-western sense of humor. For instance, the title "Van" is so simplified that I'm led to think its intention is to suggest that there is more to this painting than its imagery or its subject matter suggests. There is such looseness to Tyson Reeder's ability to handle paint, but not without a sense of self-assurance. I would prefer that his paintings be absent of any noticeable images, pure abstraction perhaps, because his technical savvy is far better suited for non-representational painting. "Van" is held together with a straightforward composition that relies on a repetitive use of form in relationship to its scale. Reeder has a confidence about his ability to use color. The richness of the van dyke brown against hues of purple can only be seen as a calculated choice from someone who understands what color really is; yet another reason to consider that there is more to this painting than the title discloses.

What if the United States is suffering from a cultural deficit? What if the aesthetic values of the artists who made the United States the global art capital have been traded in for fashion or its immediacy? What if the rest of the world imitates us and our art market? When someone like Tyson Reeder introduces his paintings to the world and it becomes celebrated and acclaimed, fashion or no fashion, the argument that America is in some type of cultural decline just doesn't seem to add up.

Published in Blank Canvas Magazine, Issue #6; september 2006 P.O. Box 70587 Worcester, MA 01607

By Jon Petro

It seldom happens that I walk into a gallery and am confronted with paintings that reaffirm my belief in the act of painting. Given the anesthetized state in which the world sits artistically, it's a rare find to come across an exhibition that blends what is really important in painting with an unbridled freshness that can only be explained as an artist's passion for his work. It was in the early 80's when I became acquainted with the concept that the art of easel painting was dead. Historians have been chanting this mantra for what seems like all of art history, but in the end there is always an exception; Jim Peters is an exception. Peters' latest exhibition, "New Work: Painting, Constructions and Drawings", on view during the month of April at the MPG Contemporary, 450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA, effortlessly confirms the idea that the art of painting, and all that it embodies, is anything but dead.

With several large scale paintings depicting Peters' distinctive sense of interior space and human form, most often female, the viewer is introduced to a narrative that reflects a sentiment of domesticity; while at the same time it exposes a classic perception of sexuality that doesn't feel obligatory or indecent. His figures are rendered with a great command of technical ability, realistically drawn from his memory, while not ruling out any method or material to achieve his desired result. This effect is especially evident in the painting "Catapult", 84" x 72", oil, photo, duct tape, glass on canvas and wood. Peters becomes a collagist to define the primary female form in the composition. By using fragments of a large digital photograph and painting-in areas of the figure that fall outside of the photograph's picture plane, Peters' integrates everything that is truly superior about his ability to paint and everything that's resourceful and alluring about digital photography. Even though Peters isn't new to the practice of collage, his willingness to reveal its necessity in his daily ritual of painting and construction is not without merit. I can only refer to it as a healthy artistic process; the viewer is allowed a glimpse into the life of the process, not just a finished product hanging in a museum or on a wall in a gallery.

In the painting "Green Wall", 70" x 50", oil on canvas, I was struck by just how beautiful Peters' vision of reality is. There is something to be said for a painter who can transcend the history of painting the female form and still manage to bring a sense of beauty to the painting. This painting is a quintessential Peters. A primary green dominates the picture plane and cleverly accents the centrally placed female form, painted from head to toe with varying hues of red. Although there is only the use of traditional painting techniques occurring in this painting, Peters allows the viewer to see every line his hand has drawn to arrive at the figure's final position. The observant viewer might just come away with the idea that they've been given all the information they'll ever need to understand this work, Peters' passion for making art, the sheer aesthetic beauty of his painted surfaces and his openness. Something that's been lacking for all too long in the art world.

Selections of Jim Peters' paintings are available for viewing at the MPG Contemporary's website, www.mpgallery.net. For a more in-depth look at Jim Peters' art go to www.jimpetersart.com.

Published in Blank Canvas Magazine, Issue #5; June 2006 P.O. Box 70587 Worcester, MA 01607