Michelle Davies | The
Journal Gazette
A series of realist
paintings by Jaye Schlesinger, featuring the rear ends of various vehicles,
wait to be hung for Saturday’s opening of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s
contemporary show.
Published: August 10,
2012 3:00 a.m.
Shock & awe value
Realist exhibit might
challenge, enthrall visitors
Steve Penhollow | The Journal Gazette
Robert Schefman’s “Science of Structure” is one of the works of
art on display in the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s contemporary art show, opening
Saturday.
Visiting the Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s
Contemporary Realism Biennial is a little like opening an album of vacation
photos and seeing things you didn’t expect to find.
On one wall of the museum there is a vibrant
painting of a dahlia and a sumptuous one of river stones, and then there is
Frank Trankina’s “Dream Cabinet.”
The cabinet in “Dream Cabinet” contains a few
broken toys and a few that might seem less ominous if they were broken.
The museum’s curator of American art, Sarah
Aubrey, says Trankina could have made his painting a more comfortable viewing
experience by presenting the toys in a “cutesy little arrangement.” But instead
“Dream Cabinet” is like the vacation photo that argues with your memories, but
may get closer to the truth.
Aubrey says such paintings and arrangements of
paintings challenge some people’s notions about what realism is and what it’s
for.
“There is this misconception that it’s all
homogenous,” she says. “Pretty pictures of flowers. But there is not only a
diverse range of media in this show, there’s a diverse range of subject
matter.”
Aubrey says some of the work is challenging.
“It makes you think outside the box,” she says.
The 2012
Contemporary Realism Biennial opens Saturday.
Ernest Viveiros’ “Spiked Dahlia”
What makes realism so popular, Aubrey says, is
that most viewers quickly find something relatable in it.
Aubrey says it is the artists’ intention to
“(pull) something out of them, evoke a memory.”
David Eichenberg’s “Fiona”
She jokingly describes realism as the “gateway
drug” of art appreciation. But realism can’t be summed up as an attempt to make
a painting look like a photograph, even though some of the paintings do indeed
look like photographs.
Denise Stewart-Sanabria’s “Gastronomical Attractions”
Several of the works in the Biennial, such as
Sharon Moody’s paintings of rolled-up comic books, are so photo-real that it is
hard to discern any brush strokes.
And others, like Denise Stewart-Sanabria’s
painting of key limes, stop being identifiable as limes if you get too close,
just as Claude Monet’s lilies stop being lilies under the same circumstances.
There is an elegant painting of wine and cheese
in the show and a painting of a pomegranate and a doughnut that is about as
reassuring as surgical images.
Bruno Surdo’s “Right to Bear Arms,” which
depicts a scene of violence that is equal parts visceral and allegorical, is no
more bucolic than Hieronymus Bosch’s hell.
Even some of the work that should make us feel
cozy has the power to unsettle us for reasons we can’t quite define.
For example, James Viewegh’s painting of a man
hugging his son in a toy-filled room, which is somehow as otherworldly in
almost unspecifiable ways as a scene from a science fiction film.
The museum doesn’t set out to offend people,
Aubrey says, but they need to be prepared for the possibility that they will be
offended by something.
Aubrey says she arranges works on the wall to create
conversations.
Case in point is a grouping of three unique
approaches to painting faces: Andrew Ek’s sardonic “Self Portrait Scratching
Face”; Joel Ottman’s intense “Lipstick and Libido”; and Carl Gombert’s raw yet
tender, “Mom During Chemotherapy.”
They are dissimilar and yet their coming
together on the same wall encourages a viewer to reflect on their similarities,
to consider how one piece affects the others.
Aubrey suggests that each work should generate a
trilateral conversation.
“(It’s) what the artists brings to the
conversation,” she says, “what the viewers bring to the conversation and what
the artwork around it brings to the conversation.”
If you go
What: Fort Wayne Museum of Art’s
2012 Contemporary Realism Biennial
Where: Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 311 E. Main St.
When: Saturday through Oct. 28
Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday
Admission: $5 adults, $3 children, $10 families; free admission every Thursday and Sunday
Where: Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 311 E. Main St.
When: Saturday through Oct. 28
Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday
Admission: $5 adults, $3 children, $10 families; free admission every Thursday and Sunday
An
exhibit of impressionistic and abstracted paintings by Hendersonville
artist Sterling Edwards will be on exhibit at 16 Patton Fine Art Gallery
in Asheville from August 10 through September 9. Works will include
wooded scenes as well as architectural themes that are mostly on canvas
and painted in his interpretive style with an emphasis on choreographed
colors and expressive shapes. Sterling is a world-renowned and
award-winning artist, author, and teacher. His paintings are in
corporate and private collections around the world, and have been
featured in several magazines and books.
Also
on display from August 10 through September 9 will be paintings by
Denise Stewart-Sanabria, of Tennessee, in an exhibit titled Epicurean
Disturbance. “In an age of advertising gone wild, certain foods have
achieved both iconic and cult status,” says the artist. “Whether it is
junk food, or gastronomic pleasures past cultures venerated, what we eat
often has achieved a personality and life of its own. She adds, the
paintings in this exhibit “hint at the behaviors of our culture, and I
hope most of them are ambiguous enough so that the viewer can interpret
them in any way they wish.”
