GERRY BANNAN: PEACEABLE KINGDOM Ruth C. Horton Gallery Thursday, May 9-Saturday, June 1, 2019
GERRY BANNAN: PEACEABLE KINGDOM
Over the course of five years (2012-2016) Gerry Bannan developed an extraordinary series of large-scale still life drawings using black ballpoint pen on expansive sheets of Mylar. Sourcing Northern European Old Master paintings and prints, in particular the 16th-century German master engraver Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and 17thcentury Dutch masters, Bannan re-imagined the memento mori or vanitas still life tradition—with its focus on the fragility of life and our own mortality—in exceptionally complex and intricate drawings. In a departure from his characteristic ballpoint pen still lifes, Bannan began in 2016 to chart new territory, expanding his artistic practice by experimenting first by focusing on landscapes as his subject matter. Several of the earlier ballpoint pen on Mylar works in this exhibition, such as Unraveling: Half a Page of Scribbled Lines (2016) or the two works titled Water’s Edge l and ll (2016), are examples of transitional works, precursors to the significant leap that followed in Bannan’s work in terms of content, technique, and scale. In 2016 Bannan ventured into even newer territory. He began working with watercolor on Yupo paper, a brilliant white Japanese paper, at a greatly expanded scale. This exhibition focuses on this new body of work, in which the artist, in addition to introducing color, introduces birds, plants, frogs, and other creatures in vivid, meticulously rendered tableaux of forest and riverbank scenes. The lush, intricately drawn profusion of inanimate objects in Bannan’s black and white vanitas still life works give way here to a world teeming with vibrant life in the forest, on the forest floor, and at the river’s edge.
Water’s Edge ll, 2016; ballpoint pen on Mylar; 19 x 33 inches framed
Sliding Unseen Beneath the Trees, 2017; watercolor on Yupo paper; 60 x 120 inches
Almost sumptuous in the rich level of earth tones, texture, and color highlights, these paintings lure the viewer into realistically depicted but slightly unreal scenarios. All manner of small animals—insects, birds, lizards, frogs, fish, and snakes—occupy the same moment in the same picture plane, in most cases an unlikely or if not implausible occurrence. What’s depicted is both a real but invented or imagined world, beautiful, quiet, idyllic, and still. Even so, what the artist portrays is not entirely Arcadia—or an idyllic pastoral paradise. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that the animals in these works include both predator and prey, in proximity, yet peacefully coexisting, a utopian if not naïve proposition. Curiously though, the artist also leaves subtle hints of intrusion, remnants of man-made objects obscured or hidden in the undergrowth, as if to mildly suggest that not all is blissful or pristine in these woodland scenes.
Green Heron, 2016 (detail) Watercolor on Yupo paper 36 x 48 inches
Bannan’s work draws from artistic precedents, whether that be the still life, landscape, and natural history painting traditions of the past, or—particularly in the case of the works in this exhibition—the influence of the great American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter John James Audubon (1785-1851). History and mythology informs the work too, as in the case of Actaeon (2018), titled as it is after a minor god in Greek mythology. What seems also to run through these paintings and drawings is a tinge of magic realism, the painting tradition in which magical or slightly strange elements are included into realistically portrayed environments. In one sense Bannan’s paintings bring to mind the 16th-18th century cabinets of curiosity, cabinets that contained collections of natural history objects and memorabilia ranging from plant and animal specimens to shells, precious stones, and other curiosities. This is certainly evident in the dense accumulations in Bannan’s earlier ballpoint drawings, and some of that sensibility carries over into the new work. The more you look at these works, the more likely you are to be surprised by seeing some small creature or unexpected detail that was formerly not apparent. These are works that can seduce you into sustained looking and take you on a journey of discovery. For the artist, however, these rich tableaux, with all their intricate density of color and detail, represent an exploration of the complex terrain of the subconscious. All that aside, the technical brilliance and beauty of Bannan’s paintings and drawings are first and foremost a visual feast. They convey an almost joyous embrace of nature—“a peaceable kingdom,” as he referred to them—in which he seeks to engage the viewer with wonder and curiosity. —Margo Ann Crutchfield Curator at Large
Actaeon, 2018; watercolor on Yupo paper; 40 x 60 inches
Works in the Exhibition
All works and images courtesy of the artist Pride of Cucamonga, 2019 Watercolor on Yupo paper 60 x 120 inches
Cypress Tree II, 2017 India ink on panel 10 x 10 inches
Juniper I, 2018 India ink on panel 10 x 10 inches
Sliding Unseen Beneath the Trees, 2017 Watercolor on Yupo paper 60 x 120 inches
Juniper II, 2018 India ink on panel 10 x 10 inches
Safe Harbor in a Sea of Doubt, 2017 Ballpoint pen on Mylar 20 x 72 inches
Actaeon, 2018 Watercolor on Yupo paper 40 x 60 inches
Green Heron, 2016 Watercolor on Yupo paper 36 x 48 inches
Sweet Hatcher Bittern Water, 2018 Watercolor on Yupo paper 18 x 24 inches
Unraveling: Half a Page of Scribbled Lines, 2016 Ballpoint pen on Mylar 20 x 72 inches
Thrasher in the Fecund Bog, 2018 Watercolor on Yupo paper 18 x 24 inches
Water’s Edge I, 2016 Ballpoint pen on Mylar 19 x 33 inches framed
Cypress Tree I, 2017 India ink on panel 10 x 10 inches
Water’s Edge ll, 2016 Ballpoint pen on Mylar 19 x 33 inches framed
About the Artist
Based in Roanoke, Bannan is a long-term professor of fine arts at Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Virginia. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the state of Virginia, as well as in Atlanta and Philadelphia. Bannan received a bachelor of fine arts in printmaking from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and a master of fine arts in painting from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. For more information, please visit gerrybannan.com.
Pride of Cucamonga, 2019 Watercolor on Yupo paper 60 x 120 inches
Moss Arts Center 190 Alumni Mall Blacksburg, VA 24061
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