HOLDING OUR ECHOES
BY AARON LEVI GARVEY
HOLDING OUR ECHOES
BY AARON LEVI GARVEY
Kevin Brisco Jr: It’s My House and I Lived Here – albertz benda Los Angeles October 4 - November 23, 2024
Kevin Brisco Jr. [American, b. 1990], Motion Sensors, 2024, Oil on canvas, 44 x 35 inches, 112 x 89 cm
The home, your home, our home, their home, the space which allows many of us to be our true selves and bears witness to the most intimate of experiences of our lives. From intense happiness and peace of mind to tragedy and consternation, the home holds many multiplicities at once. This home, the place we go when we turn inward is not only a physical but mental space; it is a feeling, a collection of memories, and a sanctuary where one finds introspection and understanding of one’s own life. The singular area in our lives which holds both physical and mental spaces simultaneously and allows us to recall both tears of joy and sadness in unison, the embodiment of one’s own history. The place in which our stories unfold, where we retreat for respite from our day’s labor, and where the walls hold and echo our histories each time we return. In its embrace, we find our true selves, shaped by the experiences and connections that turn a house or region into a home, and moreover our singular mental space into our inner home and sanctuary. A passage from East Coker in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets poetically outlines the non-linear and sometimes abstract presence the home plays within our lives.
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older the world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, A time for the evening under lamplight (The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.5
It is in our domestic spaces, often overlooked in their everyday familiarity, that our lives, behaviors, and sense of identity are grown and molded over time. From our childhood homes to college dorm rooms, in our first apartments and eventual house purchases; these spaces become the backdrops of our most intimate moments, routines and memories. They shape the trajectories of our habits and sentimentality for the rest of our lives. They are where we rest, nurture and build relationships and communities, where we display creative-expression and love through décor and pictures on the walls – artworks by children, friends, and family; photographs of loved ones; where we erect shrines to
favorite sports teams and stock shelves of keepsakes, trinkets, and heirlooms. The layout of these domestic spaces significantly influences how we live, the habits we form and what we share with visitors, underscoring our approach to hospitality.
By the same token, domestic spaces are deeply intertwined with larger cultural and practices. In many cultures, the home symbol of stability and success, reflecting values and aspirations of its occupants and generations that came before them. The concept of domestic space has evolved in response social, economic, and technological changes amid personal challenges. In the past, homes were often multi-functional with respect families and friends, and places for communal gathering, from regular holiday gatherings block parties and weekend cookouts. recently, in the wake of a global pandemic rapidly changing techno-social access points as video calls, social media, and remote work have increasingly blurred the once clearly defined boundaries of home and work life, and more incipiently, public and private life.
Particularly with families moving further apart geographically and a wanderlust among younger generations, the locale of the home has become less important than that of a multi-use space. The home has been transformed into a singular hybridized volume —serving as both classroom and playroom, lover’s suite and public forum—where living and working must coexist.
Domestic and homelike spaces have been ever present subjects throughout modern and contemporary art history, from Pierre Bonnard’s gestural and psychological interiors depicting moments of intimate mundane, Henri Matisse’s brightly colorized studio scenes as glimpses of the rare self-portrait and Romare Bearden’s geometric collages of bustling Harlem blocks and morning breakfast scenes in North Carolina, to Carrie Mae Weems’ emotive Kitchen Table Series of photographs examining the wide range of life events in a singular home space – each of the aforementioned artists depict their own self-reflection and lived experience within their homes. Kevin Brisco Jr.’s pensive and cerebral paintings join that art historical lineage to bring about a certain sense of familiarity within a shared past for viewers. A series of intimate landscapes and portraits drenched in shadows like faint memories, Brisco’s technique relies heavily on his and the model’s own life experiences using synthetism to create individual vignettes and snapshots of broader memories, akin to Paul Gauguin or Pierre Bonnard. The practice of Synthetism refers to an artistic technique in which artists blend natural elements with scenes they have directly observed.Instead of accurately reproducing reality, artists rely on memory to create symbolic interpretations of those experiences 6
Each scene and symbol within in Brisco’s recent works expands upon his own personal reflections of place and home, coupled with shared narratives within previous works. His practice of sewing through-lines within his studio practice strengthens not only his own recollections, but allows the artist, the viewers, and the sitters within the paintings to both uncover deeper personal memories while also exploring a shared human existence. His collaging of memories allows for a sequencing of personal and relatable life events, as he illustrates so adeptly the internal shared histories of
surrounding the innate memories and experiences held within the confines of our personal and shared spaces. Bachelard writes “We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost. Thus, by approaching the house images with care
not to break up the solidarity of memory and imagination, we may hope to make others feel all the psychological elasticity of an image that moves us at an unimaginable depth. Through poems, perhaps more than through recollections, we touch the ultimate poetic depth of the space of the house.”1 Brisco too focuses on the personal, emotional and poetic echoes of the home in this recent body of work, and how those echoes imprint on an individual throughout their lives.
Brisco’s brilliance of technique in capturing light and shadow interplay allows his pieces to radiate and glow on their own, drawing attention to the subtle and nuanced details, thus evoking sentiments of nostalgia and recollection blurred by faint familiarity. The pieces Don’t Forget, an image of a green hued deadbolt lock, and Discipline, a cool blue toned snippet of a leather belt being removed, are both vignettes depicting fractions of a second in time, but when paired together they elicit memories of consequence for tasks undone, such as leaving the door unlocked. A singular act which allowed the fortified walls of the home to become vulnerable and open for invasion, losing heirlooms or most importantly that precious sense of safety within the confines of the home. Even more simply, the piece Discipline on its own stands as an eerie reminder of how and why some habits have formed, and lessons learned the hard way.
Not only does Brisco’s excellence as a painter show through in these works by way of technique, but also in his ability to examine the overlooked and banal moments within daily home life and the cerebral space such moments occupy throughout our lives. Much like Tracey Emin’s powerful portrayal of her mental struggles in My Bed, 1998 9, where she revealed the most intimate details of her bedroom as a sculpture, confronting prolonged episodes of deep-seated manic depression. Brisco’s paintings serve as poignant documentations of some of life’s most sensitive periods, perhaps overlooked as mundane in the very moment but when recalled have a lasting ripple effect.
Brisco seeks to illustrate and expound upon the individual lived experience within the home and domestic space and emote familiarity, questions of contrast and relationship dynamics more broadly, akin to Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series.3
In Weems’ historic and critically acclaimed photographic series she examined two avenues of the domestic the landscape, both the physical and mental spaces held within the home. She was successfully able to push the boundary of a singular space in her own home to depict a wide range of emotions and happenings within that one room – the kitchen. Questioning preconceived notions around what the kitchen represents more broadly as a social space for friends, family and community, and even more intimately as a space to have difficult discussions regarding home dynamics such as finances, romance, political issues, familial tensions, and moments alone to one’s own self.
Kevin Brisco Jr. [American, b. 1990], EKorts, 2024, Oil on canvas, 14 x 12 inches, 35.5 x 30.5 cm
Brisco’s An Efforts is a delicate, warm, and loving piece which reminds us that our time together is to be cared for and nurtured; that even the slightest of effort or smallest gesture, such as a single fresh cut rose waiting on the kitchen table can go a long way with a partner. This work further underscores how those specific spaces within the home such as the kitchen table, can act as a meeting ground for commonality, negotiation and the squashing of grievances in addition to being a utilitarian space simply for cooking and eating meals.
Both Brisco and Weems work to not only consider the societal constructs of the home and domestic space, but equally ask the viewer to consider how we begin to alter the domestic space, our living arrangements and the correlated social contract within our neighborhoods and families by way of our shared lived experience. This delves even further into the mental and cerebral landscape of occupying our own homes, and how external factors can weigh on our day-to-day lives.
Brisco’s two paintings, Motion Sensors and Neighborhood Watch, explore the concept of intrusiveness within a community. They delve into how glances shared through a plume of cigarette smoke on a front porch can feel either intimidating to outsiders or reassuring to those within the neighborhood, knowing their block is constantly on watch and how the subtle angle of a neighbor’s motion-detected lights can intrude upon intimate moments as they shine through your window. The jarring nature of a shadowy figure on a front porch or bright unexpected lights shining into your window ultimately causes pause and a momentary internal questioning. Is our safety in jeopardy? will there be a knock on the door from an unfamiliar person? is your partner simply coming home late from work? did the neighbors carelessly -or- purposefully aim their lights at our windows away from their own home so not to interrupt their own interior lives? Those slight interactions and internal questions of intent and effect, permeate the physical and mental interior landscape of our homes and remain with us as reminders that all too often the spaces that we are entitled to have as wholly ours, can regularly be interrupted and seized without warning. Reminding us that the membrane of the home–our private space and time–is so fragile and easily penetrated.
Demons Done Got His Ass is a composite of vignettes highlighting mid-century modern architecture and a radiating fiery red inferno like vista with a single exhausted figure at center, giving uncanny reminders of the mental toll an unexpected heatwave can have on one’s mental endurance. It is as if by viewing this painting you can hear the deep breath and sigh of the figure as he sits down at the kitchen table–the heart of the home–to take a beat and think through how to navigate his thoughts. The work exemplifies just how fragile the mental and physical home life is when unexpected intrusion and seizure happens. As temperatures rise and heat waves encroach, the home is supposed to be a
secure and safe space for retreat, however when the air conditioner burns out and there is nowhere else to go, that place becomes a cage of frustration, worry and anxiety. The home has turned from a sanctuary for thought and reflection where your mind can wander blissfully, and become a place of bewilderment, dread and exhaustion as one stares ahead to the list of tasks and chores that come with remedying a problem. While our homes are more often than not places of sanctuary, they are also a place of responsibility and arenas that require our attention to manage circumstances beyond our control. Demons Done Got His Ass parallels Pierre Bonnard’s Dining Room on the Garden, 1934-358 in that both works exemplify a certain sense of solace within the home–the dining room area more specifically–the figure depicted in each work exudes exasperation, fatigue, and a longing to be anywhere else but the present.
Ultimately, domestic spaces are not simply physical structures, they are dynamic environments that reflect our identities, lifestyles, habits, and relationships. It is in these spaces where we create memories, find comfort, and express our individuality. As such, understanding the significant impact of domestic spaces allows us to appreciate the lasting weight they hold within our lives and the ways in which they shape our view of the world. Brisco’s ability to depict the dualities between emotion and memory held within a single space through vignettes of vaguely familiar snapshots is unmatched, he is able to typify notions of hope and loss or anxiety and serenity within the same painting. His work reveals the profoundly cerebral nature of home life when reflected upon without external pressures. He emphasizes the importance of living in a space where time is your own, while also allowing shared moments to accumulate into a life well-lived. Brisco joins the cannon of artists throughout modern and contemporary art history who actively seek to allegorize an intersectional and multilayered life experience. One marked by deep reflection and the valuing of singular and collective moments as indexical to one another.
Kevin Brisco Jr. [American, b. 1990], Curtains, 2024, Oil on canvas, 42 x 66 inches, 106.5 x 167.5 cm
Cita8on and Reference
1.Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
2.Barnwell Brownlee, Andrea . The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art. University of Washington Press, 1999.
3. Carrie Mae Weems, Sarah Elizabeth Lewis, Adrienne Edwards, and Takaaki Matsumoto. Carrie Mae Weems : Kitchen Table Series. Bologna, Italy: Damiani ; New York, 2016.
4. Centre Pompidou. “Henri Matisse - Grand Intérieur Rouge - Centre Pompidou,” 2014. https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/xAcyYGO.
5. Eliot, T. S. Four Quartets. Harper Collins, 2014.
6. Encyclopedia Britannica. “Synthetism | Art,” n.d. https://www.britannica.com/art/Synthetism.
7. Hill, Grant, John Hope Franklin, Mike Krzyzewski, Calvin Hill, William C. Rhoden, Elizabeth Alexander, and Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Something All Our Own. Edited by Alvia J. Wardlaw. Duke University Press, 2004.
8. Hunter, Sam, John M Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2004.
9. Meis, Morgan. “The Empty Bed: Tracey Emin and the Persistent Self - Image Journal.” Image Journal, December 7, 2016. https://imagejournal.org/article/empty-bed-tracey-emin-.
10. Metmuseum.org. “The Block,” 2020. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/481891.
11. Temkin, Ann, and Dorthe Aagesen. Matisse: The Red Studio. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2022.
12. The Museum of Modern Art. “Henri Matisse the Red Studio.” MoMA, 2019. https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389.