PA
ISSUE #66 July 2015
Curated by Daena Title
contributors REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
Angie Jones Erik Nieminen Sharon Shapiro Sharon Pomales F. Scott Hess Chris Kienke NEW MEDIUM
Didi Menendez Diana Corvelle Steven Da Luz Jennifer Balkan Darcia Labrosse THE HIDDEN FACE
Joshua Flint Bruce Lieberman Lacey Lewis Schalk van der Merwe Erica Elan Ciganek Maria Teicher COMPOSITIONAL COLLAGE
Diane Williams Kim Leutwyler Jane Dell Christopher Lowrance GESTURAL BRUSHWORK
Joyce Polance Andrea Patrie Marina Ross MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
Gail Goldsmith Rebecca Venn Susan Beallor-Snyder Sergio Gomez James Petrucci Nicole Alger Front cover by Diane Williams
GOSS183 Publisher
Didi Menendez www.poetsandartists.com © 2015 PoetsArtists & Contributors
This is an interactive publication. Click on contributor names on spreads to visit web sites when available.
Andrea Patrie
curated by
DAENA TITLE
DESTROYING the figure in the 21st
century It’s 2015, are art movements a thing of the past? Not according to these artists. Culling through the submissions to this call, trends, categories, or “-isms” solidified as if by magic. Individual artists, unknown to one another, answered the question of Destroying the Figure in the 21st Century with surprising synchronicity. As you leaf through the categories of their responses, note how their reactions to our modern life align.
lost in the noise of our technology and constant social mediums? The answer? Check out the sections on and “The Hidden Face” and “Minimal/ Mystical”.
The questions posed: in today’s world, bombarded as one is by incessant multi pronged images, does the self disappear in the noise? For the visual answer-check out “Compositional Collage”, “Refraction/Reflection” and the “Gestural/ Brushwork” sections. The techniques differ, but the shared response to today’s environment is clear.
If it often seems as if there are no discernible trends in contemporary art, this call’s results argue otherwise. How the figures in these works inhabit, share, exist or dissolve into their space mirrors the forces that penetrate each of our psyches and illuminates our place today in 21st century society.
Are our identities inextricable from or
Do today’s artists find materials no previous century before has chosen? Look at “New Medium” where contemporary artists have moved past Duchamp, Pop and Assemblage to today’s version of no rules.
Thank you to all the artists for participating. It makes one believe in zeitgeist.
Marina Ross PA#66 July 2015
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
STATEMENT
Angie Jones
My work begins not in the digital and not in the physical, but in the mix our minds make of the two. Maintaining one foot in the past and another in the future, I call into question how we perceive art by tracing a loop historically through image, technology and science. Mine, is a deconstructed abstraction of figurative representation defined by creating something new, from something old and making it new again. The influence of imagery on the brain circuitry initiates composition, color and form in
my process. Much like the subliminal messages of advertising and commercialism, the aesthetic components of my work inform an evolutionary trail through art history and the present influence of technology on our everyday life. The image represents up close and in detail like pixels on a television screen. Once the viewer has stepped back the image reorganizes into a new perception and reality through figurative abstraction.
Like a Boss oil on canvas 48x36 Kitty oil on canvas 48x36 Right Wildcat oil on canvas 48x36
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
Erik Nieminen Janus oil on canvas. 150x170 cm City Swish oil on canvas 145x200 cm
STATEMENT
Right Slip oil on canvas 90x100 cm
Glass serves as a material that connects humanity through its transparency, but disconnects us through its physical reality. By its nature it is a reflective material, and on its surface there exists a conglomeration of realities: the gravity-laden world that one can see through the glass, and what I consider to be the non-gravity (floating) reality of the one that exists on the surface of the material. Images pop in an out of existence from one moment to the next, like bubbles in liquid, universes in a multiverse. Part of my interest
is in deconstructing the city and the figures within, reforming it as a unique world. The glass reflection provides the means to do this as it allows us to see beyond ourselves, to twist and manipulate our understanding of what is real. A new visual truth emerges, one that breaks the grid of the urban environment and indeed, of figuration itself. Furthermore, it is affirmed that abstraction and representation, seemingly separate‌ are in actuality two sides of the same coin. PA#66 July 2015
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
STATEMENT
Sharon Shapiro
I paint girls and women in contexts that examine femininity, desire, control, and compliance. I search for the feminist beauty queen; mixing subversion with flirtation and intimacy with frivolity. Interested in the way our images from the past alter our way of seeing in the present, I cull imagery from vintage print materials and create blurred, mirrored composites. This treatment of figures allows a motion; a subtle perversion that involves the viewer as they physically adjust their eyes to the double vision. Faces come unbundled not in a Modernist
attempt at dimension, but instead, it is the splitting of the self that matters again and again. Within these figures I exhibit the collision of motives both individual and societal. I re-appropriate patriarchal depictions in order to subvert the patriarchy itself. While considering gender and our expectations of beauty, I am drawn to the space between dichotomies, such as soft and tough, dirty and clean, fantasy and reality. Beauty is not difficult so much for the beholder but for the one we are asked to behold.
Wrapped oil on panel 8x8 Splitting Image oil on panel 8x8 Pulling The Wool graphite, watercolor, and collage on paper 62x56
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
Tart oil on panel 36x34 Right You didn’t see me like this oil on panel 12x12
STATEMENT
Sharon Pomales
I like reflective surfaces, like sunglasses, they help you to “hide” for a moment to observe and “see” beyond the apparent. When I look at someone wearing sunglasses I not only see the person in front of me, but I also see myself, and the world behind me, distorted, dis-figured, discovered.
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
F. Scott Hess
PA#66 July 2015
F. Scott Hess
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
STATEMENT Tearing up a figure is very hard for me to do in a painting. It feels sacrilegious. I’ve spent forty years trying to make figures whole and believable, so shattering this unity goes against my nature. Yet I appreciate the art of other painters who do fracture the figure, and I find it visually exciting. I broke up figures in a few paintings, inspired by screwed up panoramic photos taken by my iPhone. No matter how wonky the image gets, our brains still synthesize the information. “Table 58” is about this split, the desire to simultaneously destroy the figure and hold it together.
Previous Page Primavera, oil on canvas 36x72 Left Table 58 oil on canvas 42x60
PA#66 July 2015
REFLECTIONS/REFRACTIONS
Chris Kienke
Under The Wire acrylic and digital pigment on canvas 84x52
STATEMENT
From The Hip acrylic and digital pigment on canvas 82w38
I have been working on a series of paintings since 2009 titled Exit Six. In Exit Six, I am painting on photographs taken from the television screen when the electronic signal is interrupted. When the DVD gets stuck or the network is jammed, the image on screen freezes and becomes pixelated. Exit Six observes through this glitch. Using this post analog approach to painting, I have been able to abstract each image to interrupt the viewing experience in order to reflect on notions of reality and virtuality.
My “tele-visual� images integrate technology and painting, as both subject and process, which further challenges traditional notions of painting. Moreover, my examination of digital images now situates my work within the discourse on contemporary society and its relationship to technology.
PA#66 July 2015
NEW MEDIUM
STATEMENT
Didi Menendez
These works are sewn on canvas. Some of the canvas are stretched beforehand and others are stretched after the work is complete. Most are freehand meaning I do not make any preliminary sketches on the canvas first. Sometimes I sew the stretchers. Sometimes I work from the front and other times I work from the back. The finished works are then brushed with glue or a clear acrylic. These thread works take anywhere from two weeks to a few months to complete.
Left Portrait of V.S. (detail) thread on canvas 11x14 Portrait of Jessica thread on canvas 11x14
NEW MEDIUM
STATEMENT
Diana Corvelle My work focuses on re-imagining personal experience as myth. Engaging with the traditions of folklore, I retell the personal narratives of close friends and family through allegory. For each portrait, I both build the paper surface with layers of gouache crosshatching and cut into it. By placing these moments of layered detail beside the negative space and cast shadows of cut paper, I seek to emphasize the precise yet indefinable nature of the remembered experiences I depict.
Meredith gouache on cut paper 30x40 Following Pages Engagement gouache on cut paper 30x40 Fall gouache on cut paper 11x14
Diana Corvelle
NEW MEDIUM
STATEMENT
Steven Da Luz
Sometime after the horrific events of Sept 11, 2001, I was haunted by the images of some middle eastern citizens gleefully cheering and dancing in the streets following the deaths of thousands at the World Trade Center. The scenes were burned into my brain. I prepared a gessoed canvas with a mixture of joint compound and clear polymer. I then poured liquid roofing adhesive onto the surface (much like melted tar- resembling oil), and allowed it to run down the surface as I tilted the support. While still wet, I added mineral spirits to the edges, which caused the black material to “bleed” a rusty brown. In the upper register I began working in oils, then added molten beeswax and resin. I sanded into these materials selectively. This provided a sense of movement and ethereal qualities. The black material began to crack, adding textural contrasts and depth to the image. I worked rapidly and deliberately. Gradually, forms, that appeared as many figures, began to converge, The glimpses of “figures” began to further merge into a somewhat “sinister” looking bat-like form. The many became one...dancing to a song of death.
Dance of Jihad (detail) oil, tar, joint compound, beeswax, resin on canvas 20x16
NEW MEDIUM
STATEMENT
Jennifer Balkan
I have merged the figure and map. In past map work, I was laying map around the figure and now I have decided that the figure and map be one. To do this, I have exercised an incredible amount of restraint. That is, I normally need to lay down plenty of paint in order to describe the figure. In this work, it is just as challenging to determine where not to paint. What is left out of the figure is filled in with map. This loss of completion or void in the figure is compensated for or gained with map elements.
“The Geography of Self� is about the deep-seated core within the subconscious for context or location, that is, to be of somewhere. We were born somewhere; we are a product of our ancestors who were born somewhere; we reside somewhere; we yearn to be somewhere. I have sought to visually articulate this idea through merging the self with the map. I find a connection between the natural and built infrastructure that maps represent and the biological system of the human body. Plus the psychological and sociocultural significance of the map has become part of the human psyche.
Left Geography of Self 3 oil on map fragments mounted on wood 24x24 Geography of Self 1 oil on map fragments mounted on wood 40x30 Geography of Self 2 oil on map fragments mounted on wood 36x24
PA#66 July 2015
NEW MEDIUM
Industrial Anodized No.2 Powdercoated anodized aluminum 48x36 Industrial Copper No.18 Powdercoated aluminum 60x38
STATEMENT
Darcia Labrosse
Fascination with the distorted human body is primordial to my art, resounding the catastrophic events of Minamata with its indirect repercussions on Butoh, the mummies of the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, the five-thousand-year-old Iceman, and more recently, the apocalyptic appearance of Rick Genest’s entirely tattooed body as he represents himself as
both art and skeleton. It brings to mind Ensor, Soutine, Bacon’s fascination with teratology, De Kooning, Dubuffet and the CoBrA movement, Basquiat, Freud and so many other artists who have tried to push the human body’s envelope without completely losing perspective of its humanity.
PA#66 July 2015
THE HIDDEN FACE
Joshua Flint
Breathing Brought Her Closer oil on wood panel 18x18 Silk Ribbons oil on wood panel 20x20
STATEMENT
Glass Orchestra oil on wood panel 18x18
The figures in my paintings are often incomplete in their resolution simply because of the way the mind functions. Experiences are not remembered in totality but are individual, lit-up moments stitched together to create a narrative. We remember specific aspects of people: a distinct gait, a gesture, a particular hairline. These ‘highlights’ of character inform my approach to image
making. By intentionally avoiding a direct translation of the figure, I’m trying to say something about how we actually represent ourselves and perceive others, which is often less fact and more personal truth. The interplay between the two opens up the dialogue of the painting.
THE HIDDEN FACE
THE HIDDEN FACE
Bruce Lieberman
Lacey Lewis
STATEMENT
Earth Mama- Venus of the garden oil on canvas 41x32
Sometimes the figures in my paintings seem to break apart, dissolve and merge with the space. It is just part of the process, it happens in the development of the painting. The figures, besides from being actors in the narrative, are just flat shape of color. So to some extent the story is simply a starting point. I become sort of purposely disinterested and detached from the particulars and
more concerned with making a good painting. The figures become shapes- formal elements, passages of paint moving in and out of space. I don’t spell everything for the viewer. It is about Paintingabout the paint, and probably just for painters.
STATEMENT
Allegory of the Artist's Dilemma oil on panel 12x9
By focusing on reemerging burlesque subculture in my recent works, I explore female sexuality in a third-wave feminist context. This paradigm renders the desires of men irrelevant: The burlesque artist does not create a strip-tease in order to play to the male gaze, nor does she shirk to avoid it. Rather, she performs for own fulfillment and self expression. Burlesque sexuality is not defined by any societal or cultural standards to which women are expected to adhere. In working with these performers, I have encountered women who shamelessly embrace their un-Photoshopped bodies: They accept their physical selves wholeheartedly, whether sinewy, voluptuous or rotund, often purposely drawing attention to that which makes them physically unique. In a misogynistic culture in which unbridled female sexuality is stigmatized, burlesque provides a rare haven where women’s sexuality is not only welcomed, but used as a vehicle to present
narratives and satires that often challenge objectification and social taboos. This reflects the healthy notion that a sexualized female is also simultaneously a whole person, unremoved from intelligence, personal ambition and strength of character. Painting portraits of burlesque artists is a way for me to present them in a medium traditionally associated with respectability. This is a subtle statement not only about the social perception of the performers specifically, but about women’s sexuality in a general. As Velazquez’s’ Las Meninas challenged the status of the artist as a laborer and reframed the role as an intellectual and noble pursuit, I aim to present images of women who are simultaneously sexual, powerful, and dignified, thereby supplanting sexual objectification and increasing women’s sexual and overall freedom.
THE HIDDEN FACE
Schalk van der Merwe The Slow Disintegration of Sanity #1 mixed media on newsprint 90x60 cm
STATEMENT
The Slow Disintegration of Sanity #28 mixed media on newsprint 90x60 cm
This series is inspired by the world we live in today. A world vastly different to the one I knew as a child. A world where instant gratification is the order of the day and everything seems accelerated, impermanent and often meaningless. It feels chaotic and I find myself strongly influenced by this. To reflect this current state of being, I chose simple newsprint and work with spray paint, charcoal, pencils, turpentine and acrylics. All of these materials can dry within minutes,
which allows me the opportunity to change images at the drop of a hat. It also allows me too work fast. I don’t think, I just do. At the end of each day I’ll review the work I’ve done. Some pieces survive, while others get happily discarded. Nothing here is permanent or precious. Everything is disposable. These are visceral portraits inspired by either a world, or an artist gone mad.
THE HIDDEN FACE
STATEMENT
Erica Elan Ciganek
The experience of water on skin is universal, however the physical appearance of it is complex and always unexpected. It simultaneously removes and relates the viewer to the subject to highlight the vastness of human experience and form.
Miguel II oil on canvas 60x48 Dorothy I oil on wood 48x48
PA#66 July 2015
THE HIDDEN FACE
STATEMENT
Maria Teicher
I am consistently searching for the reasons why we hide parts of who we are and the suffocating nature of doing so. Because of this, my work revolves around plastic veils concealing the friend or family member I have chosen to paint. Destroying the figure in this manner has become a big part of my creative identity.
Articulate oil on wood panel 18x24 Right The Amber of the Moment oil paint on mylar, mounted to wood 10x10
PA#66 July 2015
COMPOSITIONAL COLLAGE
Diane Williams
Cognizance oil on canvas 40x45 Beyond The Face oil and collage on canvas 22x 28
STATEMENT
Left Guise oil on canvas 29.75x39.75
My paintings are a hybrid of mimetic representation and abstraction. Representational figures of women and animals are used as metaphor for the self. I’m interested in juxtaposing disparate, disjointed and repeated elements, situating imagery that hinge on internal contradiction and incongruity. The combinations of polarized objects are
utilized: shadow vs. light, 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional space, geometric vs. organic, hard vs. soft and abstraction vs. realism. These contrasts create visual tension, pushing the viewer to sense the uncanny yet functioning as a system.
PA#66 July 2015
Pterodactyl Beck oil on canvas 24x18
COMPOSITIONAL COLLAGE
Kim Leutwyler
Parasaurolophus Lex oil on canvas 40x30 Left Queer Dinosaur oil on canvas 20x20
STATEMENT A playful new series of transhuman portraits with dinosaur heads. I create paintings of LGBTQ-identified and Queer-allied women, most recently focusing on my partner, dearest friends and those who have impacted my life in some way. My work explores the line between glorification, objectification and modification. I use patterns from each subject’s local and social environment as a subtle vernacular to portray the layers and complexities of identity.
COMPOSITIONAL COLLAGE
Jane Dell
There Must Be More To Love mixed media on Mylar 23x28 Mother Nature mixed media on Mylar and paper 32x25
STATEMENT
Framed watercolor ink photo/collage on Mylar
For the last few years I have been using mixed media that enables me to express the many complex roles and emotions that women experience in the contemporary world. Life is this ferocious force that keeps propelling us; at the same time, it’s also about how you can just pierce it and it dies. I’m always
playing between these two extremes in my work. My work covers the inescapable issues of health, gender, sexuality and self. By using paper, watercolor inks and photo/collage on Mylar, I can create multi-layered surfaces that can express these complexities.
COMPOSITIONAL COLLAGE
Christopher Lowrance
Self Portrait (Ask Again Later) oil on canvas 66x54 As We Are oil on canvas 40x30
STATEMENT “In some ways, I try to be as much of a “painter” as I can. That means for me working on canvas, starting with washes of arbitrary color in acrylic. After that I work with oil paints and sometimes a bit of charcoal for making adjustments to the drawing. Some trace of each stage of the painting’s making is left in the final. In the final stages, it’s important for me to paint with authority. In the way that an actor or a poet can speak lines with
Domestic Scene (Blessed Are The Cracked For They Shall Let In The Light) oil on canvas 66x54
a certain rightness and gravitas. This is true of both realistic passages and more painterly abstract passages. My subject and source material, my physical approach to a canvas that’s always being flipped upside down and sideways, are all counter to the traditional way of making a painting. I hope that in the balance between being doing things properly and improperly there is a way of making that’s all mine. PA#66 July 2015
GESTURAL BRUSHWORK
Joyce Polance
STATEMENT Exploring the dichotomy between chaos and control in the process of painting, I am applying paint thickly, loosely, and somewhat abstractly. At some point during the formation of the work, I go into the paint (with brushes or my fingers) with complete abandonment, in a manner that feels out-of-control. The challenge then is to go back in with just enough restraint to pull it all together. This course of action may occur multiple times during the formation of the piece as I build up rich, impasto surfaces and partially destroy them. Rather than conveying a specific narrative, my aim is to capture an energy, a feeling... a moment.
After oil on canvas 30x24� Fault oil on canvas 30x24 Left Collar oil on canvas 30x24
GESTURAL BRUSHWORK
STATEMENT
Andrea Patrie
For me, the act of painting is very physical. I am constantly, relying on slabs of color, scraped away passages, and colors that lie underneath to direct my next move It is often violent, aggressive and fast paced. It requires a sustained focus, as I lay pieces of color down with trowels, spatulas and large brushes, only to later remove multiple layers with knives, sanders and/or any tool that will take paint off. Generally, each piece starts with multiple sketches generated from direct observation, as the act of looking, helps me carve out the
image and understand it’s form, working with paint is a very fluid process that requires me to constantly tear apart what I have just built. While working, I become completely engaged and painting becomes more of a dance, a response to color, a push, a pull. Responding to subtle shifts which take the work in directions that are not always clear is essential. It is a place where the outside world falls away. A place where there is no judgment, no rules, but when something does not fit, it clearly makes itself known. To me, this is the magic. The magic of a physical act taking over and a body serving as the catalyst.
Homages to Ingres (the Grande Odalisque) oil on canvas mounted on wood panel 48x60 Love and Devotion oil on canvas 60x60
PA#66 July 2015
GESTURAL BRUSHWORK
STATEMENT
Marina Ross
My work is concerned with the juncture at which figuration and abstraction coincide to talk about varying levels of perception. Through the medium of paint, I explore how several modes of thinking exist in one space. Similarly, my paintings often incorporate
several modes of paint handling. This method of depicting, abstracting and destroying the figure refers to the spectrum of consciousness and how awareness comes in and out of focus.
What are we all Thankful for Today? (The Feeling of Happiness) oil on canvas 60x60 The Pattern of Love oil on canvas 45x30
PA#66 July 2015
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
STATEMENT
Gail Goldsmith
Every morning I buy coffee in a brown paper bag. One day I looked at a crushed bag and found the forms created interesting and began to draw them. a series of pencil drawings. These turned into suggestions of figures. I took scissors and cut out the pieces that interested me. Later I
included pencil lines and streaks of watercolor. The paper pieces come first. I paste them with archival paste on archival boards. This attention to preservation contrasts with the throwaway quality of the paper.
Paperwork #9 brown paper, watercolor, pencil on white board 11x14 Paperwork #10 brown paper, watercolor, pencil on white board 11x14
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
STATEMENT
Rebecca Venn
The story is not always done in a classical way. Sometimes it is taking all that knowledge and stripping it to its passionate essence. In “Subterranean” it was the water enveloping the figure that describes the primal sea that is in all of us. “Tango” expresses that passion of the dance with the reach of the arms and the fire found in the music.
Tango oil pastel 8x10 Right Subterranean Blues oil pastel 8x10
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
STATEMENT
Susan Beallor-Snyder
My work did not start out as abstract portraits but one day I was beginning a new piece and suddenly saw a face evolving from the strands of rope draped on the ground. It was after a very frustrating visit to Art Basel Miami 2014, that I decided to
create a series of self-portraits that would express emotions that I face in my life. Every knot, twist and fold becomes a blur that intertwines emotion and physicality all at once.
Self Portrait Natural Manila Rope 26x80 Right Untitled Face 1 Natural Manila Rope 24x109
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
Sergio Gomez STATEMENT The human form is the most important element in my work and it exists as an anonymous representation of the self. The figure dominates the work and it is depicted as a shadow, aura, ghost or energy light. I am not interested in developing the social, political or historical characteristics of the figure. Rather, I am more interested in the human and universal appeal of the figure. I am interested in the human and spiritual experience throughout the cycles of life. The human figures stand still, observe, communicate and/or listen, as they exist in their physical state. Overall, I appeal for a sense of human awareness and spiritual consciousness.
Standing in the Field of Dreams acrylic on canvas paper 70x42 Standing in the Field of Hope acrylic on canvas paper 70x42 Standing in the Field of Darkness acrylic on canvas paper 70x42
PA#66 July 2015
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
STATEMENT
James Petrucci
My work embraces the construction/deconstruction process. While I set out to break down the figure it is important to retain the human spirit. I want to explore the concept that we are more than just the physical and to express that spark that makes us each unique. I work with a variety of media including
oil, acrylic, ink, oil Sticks, beeswax, and spray paint. Using mostly palette knives and razor blades I hope to tell a story in the layers and marks.
Unfurled oil and spray paint on canvas 16x20 Left Unfurled #2 oil and mixed media on canvas 16x20
PA#66 July 2015
MINIMAL/MYSTICAL
Nicole Alger
STATEMENT The heightened color in Spectrum and Pilgrim is meant to express strong feelings and to keep the door open for interpretation. In Spectrum, the figure represents confidence and enlightenment, so using the literal rainbow seemed apt. For Pilgrim, evoking the heat as well as a mystical moment in this woman’s life called for a strong palette. Simplifying and abstracting the background and paint application, while remaining strongly figurative, was my intention.
Pilgrim oil on canvas 24x36 Spectrum oil on canvas 48x36
PA#66 July 2015
Daena Title graduated Wellesley College with a BA in Art History and Theatre Studies. As a painter, Title has shown her figurative art work in gallery and museum spaces since 1998, including recent group exhibitions at the Riverside Museum of Art, the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Carnegie Art Museum, the Long Beach Art Museum, the Torrance Art Museum and the Orange County Center
for Contemporary Art. Her work is part of the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Online Feminist Art base and the Tullman Collection, Chicago. She is presently affiliated with LAAA/Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, CA and has been featured in several PoetsArtists publications. www.daenatitle.com