Visual Artists

Back in 2000, I say a show of Lisa Yuskavage, at the Philadelphia Contemporary. Ever since then I have been following her work and I have been watching her progression. I have noticed that her art work is similar to some of the American style comic books. Her works remind me of “Love and Rockets,” “Strangers in Paradise,” or a few characters in “Heavy Metal.” Her work reminds me of the current Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Not because her work is similar to his, but because both artist are tapped into their own comic character culture. Yuskavage uses these comic images to create sensual characters that appear to have a narrative. Nara makes images base on manga character styles. It is my understanding that in Japan, 1/3 of all printed material has a cartoon characters. With that much saturation of imagery, it is no wonder that Nara, Murakami and other Japanese artists creating art with cartoon character, because their art reflects the culture. Both Yuskavage and Nara tend to differ from their Pop artist predecessors lifting directly from cultural images in that their works are usually filled with their own character creations. With Yuskavage’s and Nara’s characters having their own narratives, but at the same time making the viewer feel the familiarity of a style that is in the culture. Yuskavage and Nara are lifting style from popular imagery not just straight up lifting popular images. I think Yuskavage’s and Nara’s characters give more insight into the artist’s personal humanity and an insight in the broader culture. Where as someone like Warhol sacrificed his personal humanity for a broader abstract of reflection of just the culture and not the self. Yuskavage and Nara are using the personal experience and pop culture to create images and convey a subjective narrative.

Much of Christopher Wool’s work can be categorized in three distinct ideas that are unified by color and ideas. The first category Wool works with is the repetition of images using rollers and screen printing. Ann Goldstein among other critics compared him to Andy Warhol because Wool use of repetition and Wool’s selection of imagery, like the flower. However, unlike Warhol, Wool makes the image in a different environment than a ‘factory’ and his images a striped of there commercial connection. Wool poor man’s wallpaper is not about high end to middle class consumer consumption like Warhol. Wool is dealing with the image as pattern and as the process of image making.

The second category Wool deals with is text. According to Saltz, Wool’s break through happened with “Sell the Car. Sell the House. Sell the Kids.” Influenced by Richard Prince, Wool put text in his art that referenced Pop Culture. These text pieces are large letter paintings that invite the viewer to decode the work and view the work as an object. A work like, “Sell the Car….” has to be decoded from the unusual way Wool organizes the text. Then you have to decode the reference to Apocalypse Now. Question like, what significance does this movie quote have, or knowing that the letter was from a husband to a wife, how does this change the meaning? But, before decoding, the viewer is struck by the text taking the shape as an image. The few seconds the viewer first encounters the work is the corner stone to understanding the text paintings, for once the time is spent decoding the work. The first experience is lost. The viewer’s work decoding the text causes the loss of the painting experienced as an image. The image is reverted back to text. Once the viewer returns to the “Sell the Car…” painting, the viewer will be hard press to see the painting as an image and not as text. Because, our brains want to read the text and once we have learned a text, it is hard to revert back to the state before we read a text. So, Wool understands that his paintings will be experienced in time, as an image and as a text.

Wool deals with the third a category; gesture. Madeleine Grynsztejn has compared his to Jackson Pollack. Wool moves with gestures that mimic Pollack movement and at the same time Wool is referencing graffiti. He uses spray paint on his surface. He works a surface and then covers that area by covering up areas. The gesture finds itself in the pattern pieces and text pieces. The text pieces use drips and the pattern pieces are sometimes painted over and dripped over.

A limited palate of black and white is Wool’s strategy to help combine his styles. The limited palate cuts way the hierarchy of colors. The idea behind the work is what really unifies his body of work. The idea is image making. Wool is making images and not paintings and therefore he can reference and deconstruct painting. Wool seems to be critical of painting, because he strips down the color, flattens the images and creates cliché painting gestures and repetitious marks. In stead of referencing Warhol and Pollack, Wool seems to be mocking theses artist.

In 2007, I was looking at Robert Ryman’s work at the Fast Forward show at the Dallas Museum of Art, and I started thinking about my first reaction to his work. I saw another show at the DMA that highlighted his work. The work was generally minimal, textured and many of the works alternative framing devices. I reacted somewhat negative to the show. However, I keep coming back to the artist. I suddenly realized a few innovations that Ryman was making. On a few paintings, he painted these textured paintings on portrait canvas. These paintings used white paint. These paintings also used portrait canvas which is almost always been used for detailed realism and not abstract, textured works. This made me come to think that Ryman might want the viewer to draw their attention to the texture by using a very traditional flat surface and the use of white. Ryman brakes with tradition to point out the detail of the textured paint. He uses white paint to allow the viewer to focus on the texture.
Why is it important to focus on texture? In an age that image-making, texture continues to show the brake from printed image-making from painting. Easily reproduced images through print making are flat and Ryman’s paintings are textured which the texture refers to something unique about painting. Ryman’s texture is not overly dramatic, but subtle, like the white paint he uses to apply the texture. The paint is also applied in what seems to be a random manner. These random brushes are nested together in a natural and an organic mix. The paintings expose the fact that the painting is on a flat surface. The painting does not always extend to the edges of the canvas. This reveals the material that supports the work. And only those in the know, can appreciate Ryman’s use of the portrait canvas.
So, the more I viewed Ryman’s work, the more I understand how the work fit into the time and place and the more I appreciated his work. A white painted canvas can be much more than what is seen from a first glance.