New York City Write-Up

First impressions of Jenny Saville’s gigantic figural oil paintings and drawings were that she used a lot of bright fleshy colors and repetition. Although she painted the face of the same boy four times to create four different paintings, they were each different with a unique search and exploration. Similarly, in all of her other paintings she exercised a patina built out of the searching lines of the subject(s) existing in alternate universes. With this layering, Saville’s works demonstrate a graceful balance between thick strokes of painterly shape and color along with delicate line work or textural points of clarity (particularly with eyes). She seems to work loosely and energetically, making key choices for defining her figures. Saville is known for utilizing the nude figure as her subject matter, but in most of the paintings from the Gagosian Gallery, I noticed a theme of mother and child where the mother is often pregnant as well. The write-up, “JENNY SAVILLE: Continuum” explained that she was “inspired by Renaissance nativity portraits,” especially one by Leonardo da Vinci. As someone from Cambridge who has had exhibitions worldwide with her first solo U.S. exhibition opening this year at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, it is somewhat encouraging to see her reverting to such a traditional subject matter and making it fascinatingly contemporary. A quote from Jenny Saville herself says that “(Flesh) is all things. Ugly, beautiful, repulsive, compelling, anxious, neurotic, dead, alive.” I have to agree, particularly when discussing Saville’s paintings, and find myself amazed that after all these years humanity has existed, the figure is still one of (if not the most) interesting subjects for artists to articulate.

Walking into Eko Nugroho’s exhibit, Snobs Behind Ketchup was like walking into a magical, fun, illustrated world. Although we had just walked off the streets into a gallery, I almost felt as if we were looking at the walls of some graffiti-decorated New York alley. Almost all of his work, particularly the wall murals, engaged the viewer on a strange and often humorous note. He used a variety of different media, however, one of the most interesting of which was what appeared to be a purple tree/mound of embroidered fabric with two life-sized legs protruding. Like this piece, almost all of his work references the figure in a graphic, comic-book style incorporating playfully bright colors and text that seemed carefully chosen for irony and humor, but did not dominate the artwork itself. One of my favorite quotes from Nugroho’s work was “stop thinking and just paint.” After reading about him, the selective wordplay seems fitting with the fact that English is his second language and he comes from a rich Indonesian background. This self-made artist combines all different elements of machinery, plant-life, textiles, and humanity to create art as multi-faceted and creative as he is. Nugroho even uses his artwork on t-shirts, journals, clocks, and other purchasable gadgets, which is a smart way of making money while giving his fans a way of keeping a part of his art (although I do wish his prices were not so high). I really enjoyed the surreal juxtaposition of ideas utilizing bodies that allow for any viewer to feel an instant connection and simultaneous confusion. Eko Nugroho is someone I can learn from in terms of being free with representation, and I admire his ability to think outside of the box literally to continue his art on the ceilings and even outside the gallery.

The very first thing I noticed about Liza Yuskavage’s paintings was that they popped with deliciously bright, rich colors, and all contained sensual, luxurious figures suggestive of a male fantasy verging on the grotesque. Even the non-figural aspects such as landscape and lush round-shaped fruits that are often used as props add elements of male fantasy in more subtle ways to the overt depictions of female legs spread open or exaggeratedly large breasts. I had seen Yuskavage’s work previously online, but seeing her large oil paintings in person was an entirely different experience. Three pieces in particular caught my eye, the first of which was a small painting consisting of simplified strokes (in comparison to her other paintings). This piece was the only one of its size, and was therefore a nice contrast to Yuskavage’s more finished pieces like her triptych. This work is apparently her first triptych in her third solo show (maybe the numbers are significant). This triptych best shows her range of reality to strangeness, conservativeness to overly erotic, as well as an interesting shift in scale. A third piece that I was really drawn to was the heavily saturated lime green painting called “Outskirts.” Of all her paintings, this one most clearly illustrates the relationship between Yuskavage’s figures and the male audience because she actually includes a male traveler observing the nude woman in the forefront from afar. The composition is engaging mostly because of the legs that the female figure appears seated on, since it is confusing as to how they exist in the space without a body. Liza Yuskavage is a prominent artist with work all over the United States and a Masters from Yale School of Art, and her work is just as impressive as her background.

Maja Lisa Engelhardt’s work, though abstract in nature, is strongly suggestive of landscape, but with no firm ground. A presence of light (often simply suggested with white paint) illuminates most paintings and the textural process of the paint suggests landscape on more of a subconscious level. When reading through the pamphlets on her Elizabeth Harris Gallery show, I was very interested to discover Engelhardt’s intent behind the paint. The show “The Fourth Day” connotes the fourth day of biblical creation and is meant to portray the invention of light and darkness. The square format of all her acrylic pieces then becomes important to the circular movement of the heavens. A Wall Street Journal article written by Lance Esplund and titled “Maja Lisa Engelhardt: The Fourth Day” likens Engelhardt’s style to Monet’s water lilies, but also says that she “falls somewhat short of expressing the dynamics of creation.” I would like to agree on both accounts, for while the works are wonderfully ambiguous and suggestive of landscape, they do not overwhelm the viewer with the dynamism of explosive creation, as one might expect, given the intent. As a coherent collection, however, I did enjoy the painterly qualities of the works and the colors that were chosen to exist together in each frame. I accepted the Danish artist’s work more readily prior to learning of her intent than when I learned how the paintings were meant to be interpreted. This suggests to me that once labels and ideals are attached to art, the piece becomes a lot more complicated than if the art is allowed to exist on its own. Because my own work is so based in reality I need to be careful not to let my ideas stifle the fantasy emerging.

Although Amy Cutler’s work exists in fantasy world similar to my own, her fantasies are articulated in a vastly different manner. She uses print-making, drawing, and some painting, and her works use fine line and detail to illustrate strange juxtapositions of people, animals and settings. One of the repeated themes I noticed in her work is that of the headless/decapitated person, usually sitting and resting her feet on the head. Most of her figures are female, and therefore, hair seems to be an important element. Patterning is also thematic to most compositions, with breaks of space essential to maintaining a balanced piece. All of Cutler’s works are relatively small in scale, requiring a closer, more intimate viewing of them. Cutler’s international renown is almost apparent in her odd juxtaposition of different cultural references. The delicate fantasy worlds with limited color palate on white paper reminded me more of Taylor Lynch’s work with memory than my own work, particularly the sculpture piece with pink bunnies in place of hands (like Taylor’s sock-puppet piece). I am not sure what Amy Cutler’s intent is with her strange narratives; I can only speculate some sort of commentary on the tasks and lives of women.

Devin Troy Strother’s work is cheerful and silly with bright colors accented with black stick-figure-like people. His inventive use of mixed media, wood, paper, paint, and even ashtrays made for a diorama or scrap-booking effect while the sprinkled pieces of color were reminiscent of confetti or party balloons. The black cut-out figures instantly made me think of Kara Walker’s silhouettes, and the mischievous gleeful smiles inspired a similar attitude that Walker gives off in her pieces. Strother’s figures are all miniature in size, however, and were given faces and nipples so as to not be mistaken for silhouettes. In his write-up, Strother talks about how these figures become part of the art making, but at the same time seem to be displaying the art to the viewer. In what he calls his “kit-paintings,” Strother expresses an interest in the shelf as a way of framing himself and introducing his style to an audience who is given the chance to see this solo show of his for the very first time. I especially enjoyed the wall of small rectangular boxes that formed a variety of silly narratives about the figures in each box. I definitely get a sense of the artist’s character and spunk, but I do not know if I see as much of a self-portrait as the artist himself thinks he is showing. I appreciate his interest in art history and definitely see a connection to Felix Gonzalez Torres’ Untitled (Portrait of Ross) in his collections of dried paint chunks, but mostly, I see a connection to the memories of his past not so much relating to him, but to the people around him, such as his Auntie Ann (mentioned in his write-up).

The BravinLee Programs show of Katie Armstrong and Lisa Kellner was an interesting pairing of artists (and would have merited more time if the gallery was not so hot). The video by Katie Armstrong was powerful because of the very distinct style she chose to illustrate and because the vocals were done all by the artist herself. There is a sad longing that comes across in her wavering voice and in the partial bodies (the reflected legs running especially). In addition to her video, she had a collection of her drawings used in the video, which offered a different dimension and allowed the audience to see more of her creative process. Lisa Kellner’s work was much more abstract and amoeba-like, similar to some of the art Minerva Ranjeet is doing. Kellner uses ink, acrylic paint, and raw pigment on Mylar to create puddles of color that interact to create unique relationships between adjoining shapes.

Although we did not see the work of Mary Lum, the last artists on our prospective list, we did see a few other artists worth mentioning, namely Anthony Goicolea, Vincent Desiderio, James Winn, Aaron Johnson, and David Byrne. Goicolea’s work was somewhat visceral and anatomical, but usually juxtaposed combinations of things from nature to make pastiches of things such as trees and human/animal limbs. The incredible detail made the swarms of inked flies really pop off the paper and similar to Amy Cutler, hair was a strong element. Desiderio’s work is similarly dark, but uses the figure in strange ways almost like some beautifully painted nightmare. The subtleties in his paintings suggested to me a breakdown of contemporary society or perhaps of stereotypes, as with Bride and Self-Portrait Before Orozco. The realism in Desiderio’s paintings is striking, but there is much more of a painterly vibe (where he chooses to be a bit looser) in comparison to James Winn. Winn’s exhibition concentrated on The Lotus Series 2005-2011 in a style that is photorealistic. His bio describes his love for landscape painting and this series was his way of finding new terrain away from the evidences of mankind. The precision with which he describes each leaf and detail is mind-blowing and seems incredibly tedious, even to me. Aaron Johnson’s work is tedious in an entirely different manner that is much more exciting and gripping. The most fascinating thing about Johnson’s large brightly-colored paintings is his process, since he paints on the backside of a transparent material and layers the paintings from front to back, from detail to loose expressiveness, a system backwards from the way most all teachers suggest. His subject matter is comical and fiendishly grotesque with an abominable combination of religious imagery and war violence with all sorts of suggestive monstrous creations in a world of exaggerated chaos. David Byrne also creates a world of his own, but in a much more realistic sense of the word world. His “Tight Spot” was a piece we stumbled across, as it was a massive inflated global map with eerie audio effects implemented to give its audience an ominous feeling. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed our class trip to New York because the art we saw was all inspiring in some way and I have a better sense of what professional artists are doing to make a name for themselves in today’s world.