Visual Arts

Ari Post • November 3, 2011

Watercolors are an often overlooked medium, their subtleties and patiently layered depths seemingly run off by the raw energy of so much popular expressionism and abstraction. Angela Iovino’s series of landscapes at the Parish Gallery, open through May 18th, is a kernel of cool mint, cleansing the palette between the explosive, bright flavors being offered around the city.

Even with such tangible titles as “Eastport Maine Morning” and “Hot Spring I,” to call these studies ‘landscapes’ is more of a projection than a precise definition. Iovino’s paintings are the geography of dreams that pull the viewer in only to stand beyond a world that cannot completely be entered.

Iovino lets the water do a lot of the work in her paintings, allowing the colors to dissipate, diffuse and coagulate in their wet state. I am inclined to believe that puddles of water may well have been spread carefully around the paper. The atmospheric effect created by this technique is thick and simultaneously transparent, recalling the feeling of intense humidity.

Like looking into a marsh, or staring fixedly at something and then closing your eyes – what is seen in Iovino’s work is more of a feeling of brevity, a weightlessness that cannot last. But in the meantime, it is a beautiful sight.

Through May 18 at the Parish Gallery (1054 31st St.)

John Blee •

I have often noticed the incredible exterior of the 19th-century house at the corner of Q and New Hampshire. It is every bit as grand on the inside as the outside and it houses the Woman’s National Democratic Club (1526 New Hampshire Ave.). There is currently a show there (through July 22) entitled “Art in Congress,” with works by members of the U.S. Congress and their families. Everyone can cheer the inclusion of Representative Barney Frank’s partner, Jim Ready, who has a large photograph, “Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.” It depicts the view of the crowd attending the Obama inauguration in epic manner.

The works in the show contain some surprises, including the thought that Senator Diane Feinstein of California could quit her day job and launch a respectable career as a floral artist. Though she is needed in the Senate, her lovely “Autumn Bouquet” would be welcome to anyone needing some quiet color affirmation. And Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona displays some very strong graphic gifts in his “Long Day of Legislating,” drawn with a Sharpie. One can feel the tension of April 28, 2007 in his jagged linear qualities.

A surprise is also the sumi-e brush painting on rice paper by Representative Jim McDermott, of Washington. He has been classically trained in the sumi-e technique, and his “Mountain Bamboo” brings its auspicious freshness to the show. On a totally different note, Representative Dina Titus of Nevada shows her book cover for “Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing.” It is appropriately grim.

Erin Kelly, daughter of Representative Betsy Markey of Colorado, is a gifted photographer. She has a diverse body of work that shows a wide range of styles. Representative Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii is represented by a technically accomplished clay sculpture entitled “Tokyo Dango” that includes cherry tree twigs. There is a bit of ikebana in the piece; it is bold, but in a graceful way.

There is a poem by Representative Diane E. Watson of California entitled “Aunt Gert.” Poems should be found more often on the wall. And California Congressman Mike Thompson has a very skillfully done “Drake Hunting Decoy” made of redwood, oil, and glass, used for duck hunting in the Pacific Flyway of California.

Suzanne Finney of the Woman’s National Democratic Club’s Arts Committee accompanied me through the show. I asked her in the spirit of bipartisanship if any Republicans were invited, and she smiled in response. [gallery ids="99134,102722,102714,102699,102707" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

Born in Southwestern Nigeria in 1954, Tayo Adenaike, whose show “Faces and Emotions” opens June 18th at the Parish Gallery, recalls the looks he would get from his mother: “Depending on the occasion, her look could mean “Don’t eat what you have been offered,” “Get up and let’s go,” “Say yes,” “Say no”, or “Keep quiet.” Every facial expression conveyed specific meaning and every visual admonition must be heeded. Failure on my part meant a long pull on my ear or strokes of the cane the minute we got back home.

“?jú róró ?a. I knew what it meant. These three simple Yoruba words translate as “Words come from the eyes,” “Words are embedded in the eyes,” “A face says it all,” or “A face never belies the truth.”…They all see some evocative strength in the expression. This interaction between my mother and me, made me realize how much more powerful facial expressions are, than loudly spoken words. Over time, I have also come to realize that facial expressions and unspoken words, can say a lot about the society we live in. Within these frames, I have tried to capture faces and the emotions – the unspoken words that they portray.”

In Adenaike’s work, the audience is privy to a surreal conversation unfolding on the canvas. The figures, vague, conjoined, defined simply by negative space, speak to each other in a language of reverberating expression.

A master watercolorist, Adenaike’s backgrounds are a hazy atmosphere of dissipated symbols, stars, and full constellations, speaking towards a rich cultural tradition, perhaps muddled by globalization and the loss of ancestral knowledge. The dynamic faces among the figures, varying in detail and abstraction, recall the detached, languid repose of de Chirico, while simultaneously drawing upon the geometric harmony of the faces on antiquated Nigerian stone carvings.

There is also a certain melancholy and sobriety to the work, and not without reason. The human condition, one could gather from these works, is one of reservation and reticence. Says Adenaike, “I am not unmindful of my environment and the faces I see around me, as my country is about to celebrate fifty years of independence. Perhaps I should have painted the hopeful faces of us, as flag-waving children of fifty years ago, and not the adult faces we have grown into, with guarded emotions and veiled expressions.”

It is a show with a strong voice. Adenaike is an artist with something to say, even if one can only hear him by using their eyes.

For more information contact the Parish Gallery, 1054 31st St., or visit www.parishgallery.com.

John Blee •

At the Phillips Collection, there is a double feature of (almost) white painting with Richard Pousette-Dart and Robert Ryman occupying different floors within the museum (1600 21st St., through Sept. 12.) It is the differences between the two artists that enhance the choice of having both exhibitions at once. In conjunction with the show, Yasmina Reza’s “Art,” a play focused on how a white painting puts friendship to the test, will perform at the Phillips on July 1 at 6:30 p.m.

White is not a color often featured in Western painting before the 20th century. It usually is found in paintings in clouds with tints, on the highlights in objects and sometimes in snow. Here it stands alone, or almost alone. Robert Ryman’s show is the best Ryman show I have ever seen. This is possibly because of the small scale of the work that allows you to pay more attention to how the paintings are painted. One can focus on the edge that is painted, the threads that stick up from the frayed canvas, and the actual strokes that tell far more.

Here Ryman astutely contemplates painterly means, and he is sometimes lyrical in a fumbling manner. His small works have the dramatic tension of a stage whisper. For me it is the all-black Jasper Johns and Robert Motherwell (of the “Iberia” series) that mentor Ryman, especially in his early works. Ryman is closer to Johns in being emotionally deadpan. Motherwell had more range than Johns or Ryman. And unlike Johns or Motherwell, Ryman does have one of the all-time worst signatures in art — very junior-high-school. Nevertheless, Ryman has had a huge influence on the look of abstract painting of the last 40 years; you see his pokerfaced progeny everywhere.

Visiting these shows for the third time, it is Pousette-Dart’s work that holds repeated viewing. With Pousette-Dart there is real experimentation with technique and an openness of the possibilities of painting. His extensive drawing with graphite into the final, rather than the preliminary, aspect of painting was innovative. His few sculptures are worthy of inclusion, not just sidepieces. They have a direct relation to the paintings, though they are lighter hearted.

In Pousette-Dart’s sculpture and the painting, there is overt and covert figuration. One work is divided with a male and female figure splitting the canvas, yet meshing in the web of space. There are biomorphic forms in most of the paintings. Visible is the common heritage of abstract-surrealism derived from Picasso and Miró. But it is Pollock and his allover drip paintings from the late forties that inform the structure of some of the greatest of Pousette-Dart’s almost-white paintings. Somehow he could easily integrate Pollock’s great reckless expanses into his much more intimate quest.

Pousette-Dart’s line is deft and unlyric but weighted and incisive. His use of space is always dynamic and active and his pictures activate the space around them. A painting should have secrets, and these wry and sometimes quietly joyful pictures do contain enough to warrant real looking. [gallery ids="99152,102834,102829,102824,102843,102847,102851,102819,102855,102839" nav="thumbs"]

Georgetowner • September 21, 2011

Hemphill Fine Arts
Models of Freedom

Contemporary Russian art is not usually an uplifting experience. Decades of social and political turmoil are quick to surface in the works of the artists, who have often battled severe creative persecution and censorship throughout their lives. At the New Museum in New York, for instance, the current exhibition “Ostalgia” (through Sept. 25, 2011) fills the five floors of the museum with harrowing visions, somber memorials, and vivid outcries of a country torn from deep within. While undeniably powerful and of lasting social importance, it can all leave you feeling weak, even incapacitated.

And so the work of Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov is a welcome contrast. In the exhibition’s strongest works, Hemphill showcases the artists’ monumental public work proposals, offering a vision of a fruitful, dynamic future.

Beginning his career as a government-sanctioned children’s book illustrator in 1950s Moscow, Ilya Kabakov secretly pursued private works on his own time, exploring societal transitions between construction and decline. Since 1988, Ilya has worked collaboratively with partner Emilia, and the resulting work is rooted in a social conviviality, focused on education and shared public spaces. In a model of the Kabokov’s renowned large-scale traveling sculpture, “The Ship of Tolerance,” first built in Siwa, Egypt and to be presented in Miami this December, an ancient Egyptian vessel is adorned with sails stitched together from paintings of hundreds of local school children from different ethnic and social backgrounds, teaching children the value of different cultures and ideas. In “The Large House of Humanity,” they offer a stunning model and proposal for an empty park area across the Potomac from Washington, to be equipped with green space, a large performance stage, small museums and educational centers. As made clear from the work, these artists are devoted to the growth of social knowledge, ideas and liberty. It is work that deserves to be seen.

“KABAKOV: Ilya & Emilia Kabakov,” will be on display at Hemphill Fine Arts through Oct. 29. 1515 14th Street, NW # 300. HempHillFineArts.com.

Heiner Contemporary
Waiting for a Hollywood Ending

The Heiner Contemporary gave artist David Kramer more than just an exhibition. They gave him control of the entire gallery.

Deeply affected by the cultural clichés, Hollywood ideals, and advertisements he grew up with in the 1970s, Kramer’s work explores the disillusionment of adulthood, while still filled with humor, sincerity and wisdom.

Walking into the gallery, you enter a stylish, nuclear-colored 1950s living room, complete with faux stonewall facing and pod-shaped furniture. Kramer’s paintings, almost littering the walls, offer nostalgic freeze-frames from the era, long lost but never quite forgotten. Men and women lie in each other’s arms with stiff drinks and swirling cigarettes. A stylish gathering of erudite young couples basks in the parlor with all the comfort money can buy. There are also cowboys, nude women behind flowers, family portraits, picnics beside Cadillac convertibles, and so on in that fashion. The entire color palette recalls a bag of Skittles.

Though Kramer is clearly a master draftsman, the paintings are executed with an intentional crudeness and injected with ironic, pithy quips and personal aphorisms of the artist. In one painting, a couple lounges together lovingly with wine, cigarettes and coffee, and across the paper is written, “Why is it that the things I love most…Are the very things that are going to end up killing me.”

The furniture likewise seems a bit off—if functional—until you realize that the artist built everything, from the lamps, to the tables, to the wall, by hand. The gallery will host a performance by the artist and party on Saturday, Sept. 24 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

“Prequel to the Sequel: Waiting for the Hollywood Ending,” will be on display at Heiner Contemporary through Oct. 22. 1675 Wisconsin Avenue NW. HeinerContemporary.com

Addison/Ripley Fine Art
The Literature of Landscape

It is clear in the work of painter Mary Page Evans that the landscape genre is very much alive. The conviction and fluidity of her brush strokes, her intuitive sense of the textures of land, sky and sea, and her pure, unfiltered observation are nothing other than the culmination of years devoted to mastering this artistic tradition.

Addison/Ripley Fine Art is exhibiting a large body of new works by this prolific regional artist. In her recent paintings, Evans has taken the ocean swells, rolling hillsides, and lush forests of the East Coast, and broken down the planes and surfaces into a cohesive, undulating rhythm of color and texture.

There is an expansiveness and allusion in her bold, loose brushstrokes that is almost literary, referencing a history of predecessors, from her mentor Gene Davis—of the Washington Color School of painters—to Monet, de Kooning, and renowned landscape painter Richard Mayhew (whose work is currently on view at the Parish Gallery in Canal Square). The only equivalent to experiencing the graceful, fluid work of this artist would be to walk through the Shenandoah Mountains or explore the windy coastline of the Virginia shore. But this sure is a lot closer to home.

“Skies, Trees and Sea,” the artwork of Mary Page Evans, will be on display at Addison/Ripley Fine Art through Oct. 15. 1670 Wisconsin Avenue NW. AddisonRipleyFineArt.com

John Blee • July 26, 2011

Inscape that has hints of the natural world as well as jewel-fragments is found in the work of Robin Kohlman Fried (Temple Emanuel, Art in HaMaKom, 10101 Connecticut Ave, Kensington, MD; Mon. – Thu. 2:30 -5, Fri. 9-4; though Sept. 30.) Although relatively smaller in scale than some of this artist’s earlier work, these pictures seem done on a dare to create as wide an arc as possible in terms of color and composition. That Fried succeeds on her own terms in each picture is the result of her own gifts, but also a strong determination.

Fried seems fired up in each piece using every technique at her disposal to manifest a rich inner world. She speaks of a long hiatus in her working as a painter that is experienced by many who initially start out in adolescence and early adulthood to pursue a creative path. “I fully intended to keep painting when I first became a mother,” She recalls, “but I had to give my complete attention
to raising my children. In my inner world I was an artist, even though I was no longer painting. I was seen by others as a parent and as someone active in the community.”

What Fried did not do was stop looking at art and going to museums; her inner dialogue was kept alive through being in contact with art. What made her want to paint again was seeing all the new art work being made that was “over intellectualized…I wanted to affirm the aesthetics I value that seem ignored in much work today.”

The works by Fried in this show are carefully made and manage that delicate balance between the heat of spontaneity and the coolness of the critical judgment involved in balancing color and composition. Her pictures have a sensuous attack on surface and pictorial space. There is also a use of collage elements, but Fried’s craft is so secure that you often have to look hard to see the edges. Each work is separate in its achievement and what is especially noteworthy is the carefully achieved color. Fried is a terrific colorist, a quality that has to be inborn.

It is the freedom of the painting that triumphs in Fried’s work. In “Glimmer Glass,” there is temerity of purpose. “Secret Garden” is another work that is highly individualized with an exuberance of paint. Fried’s work is a private inner world dared into the light of day.

John Blee •

The best photography show currently running in the DC area is Tom Wolff’s portrait series, at the 39th Street Gallery in Brentwood, Maryland (3901 Rhode Island Ave). Wolff recalls, “The idea of the project was to do a photographic survey of the arts district in Mt. Rainier, North Brentwood, and Hyattsville, focusing on the art community and the business owners. This is an effort to introduce people in the area to one another and build a friend base for the art center. I shot for about two months to get the first 70 portraits and I will continue to add to the group until it closes October 29th.” The excellence and variety of his work astonishes [gallery ids="99201,103431,103428" nav="thumbs"]

Ari Post •

It is rare to find such a steady and yet exciting subject as is found in both the paintings and the person of artist David Richardson. With an astonishing discipline, he has explored and unraveled three series of paintings, any one of them strong enough to exhibit individually. In a roiling assault of nebulous symbols – some seemingly unconscious, some loud and overt – and vast planes of bold colors and textures, his work recalls a landscape both foreign and familiar, contained yet effusive. Richardson’s work seems to be chasing something beyond the artist’s own vision. The revisiting and evolution of repeated shape and composition unfold like chapters of a great novel: questioning, but sure of the direction. His exhibition at the Ralls Collection, running through the end of the year, establishes him firmly in the forefront of abstract painters of the day. The exhibit is one of the highlights of the visual arts season. The Georgetowner sat down to speak with Richardson
about his work.

David Richardson’s exhibit, “Trojan War Years,” is on display at the Ralls Collection from October 6 – December 31. For more information, visit www.RallsCollection.com

Where are you from? How did your upbringing shape your life as a painter?

I’m from Michigan. Most folks think of Detroit when they think of Michigan. That’s not the Michigan I come from. I grew up in a semi-rural environment – a marshland with a river meandering
through it. My brothers and I fished a lot, trapped raccoons and muskrats for their hides and ran the river in canoes camping and shooting guns. It is romantic to me now. It wasn’t then. My mom and older brother painted. My mother was still selling her work and teaching painting in her house when she died last year. Today, my brother lives in Germany, paints and exhibits his work around Europe. As a kid I drew a lot and eventually began painting, following in the footsteps of my mom and older brother. I don’t remember when I first drew or painted. It was early in life. I started college on an art scholarship, but I didn’t much take my own painting seriously until I was twenty-three or so.

Did your experience in the military and combat impact or inspire your work?

Somewhat. Of course travel, particularly to Asia, has had an impact on my work. I’d been to Europe before joining the service, but I went to Asia only because I was sent there. It turned out a good experience. The impetus of all three series the Ralls Collection is showing came while I was overseas.

It gets a little more personal than that, though. During the initial stages of the war, I was left behind teaching at George Washington University. This was somewhat traumatic for me as my closest friends were with combat units and participating in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The agony of watching from the sidelines pushed me further into painting. At the time I was working on the early stages of the series based on the Japanese stone markers. I began to title them using characters from Homer’s Iliad. I had that text on hand because I’d refer to it now and then in class. The characters in the Iliad are nuanced and the war brings out the worst and the best in them. Of course, it’s the same in real life. It’s not an accident that the Iliad is the fountainhead of Western literature. It still resonates twenty-five hundred odd years later. At least it did with me.

While working on a series as comprehensive as the Trojan War Series, you impose upon yourself very strict limitations and boundaries, in terms of composition, value, concept, etc. In establishing these boundaries, what have you noticed in the transformation of the work, and your own styles and objectives in painting?

That is a tough question. It’s tough because I never consciously set the boundaries. They evolved, and they evolved out of figurative painting. The evolution took a long time – about fifteen years. But once I had this framework, it became this box where I could practice color, composition and other elements of painting. Another way of looking at it is that I’ve used the stone motif and the symbol of the cross much as somebody would use the figure or still life to practice picture making. I’m always looking for a new box to practice within, by the way.

Your paintings are abstract, to be sure, but they draw largely upon tangible elements: the streets of Seoul, neon crosses, inscribed Japanese stones, military symbols, even stencil lettering. How do you define your style of working?

Well, I’d say it falls generally into the broad category of Modernist type painting – Clement Greenberg’s term. Beyond that, I don’t know how to categorize it. I’d leave that to someone who knows more about art than I do.

Did you work on many of these pieces living abroad? How did that affect the outcome of the work?

I didn’t paint anything from the series based on Japanese stone markers and Homer’s Iliad when I was overseas the last time. I tried, but it simply didn’t work. I ended up doing composite work based on some visuals I picked up in Seoul. However, the paintings did not start out as composites. That evolved. I was actually painting symbols on small canvases that I carried home on my bike from a carpenter’s shop. I had painted about twenty of these small pieces when I started organizing them into larger pieces. Some of these pieces are at the Ralls Collection now. You can see I clamped the canvases together tightly and then secured them in place with screws. The result was sort of organized chaos, that thing that often seems to surround one while living in a foreign country.

Who are some of your influences as a painter?

Adolph Gottlieb was the first non-figurative painter I became transfixed by, so that’s a start. Richard Diebenkorn and Robert Motherwell are others that everybody knows. Yet I remember being in Mexico in the mid-nineties and seeing profound folk paintings based on simple motifs. The same goes for pictures I saw in Japan and Korea. Now I wish I’d collected some of these pieces. Closer to me, the Washington DC painter John Blee has had a big impact on the tone of my work. Looking at Blee’s work keeps my palette from getting too somber. His dedication to painting is unmatched.

Of course from an early age, both my brother’s and my mother’s painting greatly influenced my work. I used to tell my mother I stole her color palette–she said she didn’t mind, by the way. My brother opened my mind to the possibilities of figure abstraction and abstraction in general.

What are your favorite museum exhibits in DC right now?

The American Modernism showing at the National
Gallery right now. I particularly like the pieces by Dove, Marin and Hartley. I’ve spent a lot of time out of the country – so much that I have developed a particular passion for things American: skyscrapers, cowboys, highways through the desert, the Shenandoah Valley and the bravery of our painting. Go anywhere you wish in the world and you can’t beat the boldness of Avery, Pollock, Kline, Basquiat, Johns or Rauschenberg. These painters aren’t in that particular exhibit, but you get what I mean.

What would your advice be to a painter struggling with inspiration, unsure of what to paint?

Well, you know the thing about inspiration…a little goes a long way if you work hard after the fact. I don’t think what you paint actually matters. Find something that interests you and attack it, hard. Paint that, then go to museums and exhibits and look at painting. See how others are doing it or did it. Then, go back and paint more and then look at more painting. Keep doing it. Hang out with other painters and talk about it. Eventually, it melds into something cohesive and true. [gallery ids="99206,103450,103446,103444" nav="thumbs"]