Jonnel Covault

"Elegant Shelter"  Linocut  28" x 20"  2010

"Fishing Willamette Falls"  Linocut  20" x 28"  2012

"Ode To Lew Welch"  Linocut  24" x 30"  2005

"River Waterfall"  Linocut  26 3/4" x 16"  2012

"Moment's Rest"  Linocut  12" x 15"  2012

I've wanted to post Jonnel Covault's work before, ever since I saw a print at a local charity auction. But the images on her website are just too small to convey the exquisite detail and patterning that makes her work so compelling. The images you see here are only slightly larger (and barely adequate). I would love to be able to show you a few detail shots. They were taken from her gallery in Portland, www.augengallery.com, where she has a show of work both old and new. It will be up until the end of the month. So if you're local to Portland OR, you should stop by. If not, the best you can do is watch the slideshow that first comes up on her homepage (jonnelcovault.com). The fade-ins and cropping make it hard to get an idea of the whole but you can begin to see the range of her marks, simple lines and swirls and hatch marks that manage to wonderfully convey the textures of land and water and sky. She does a lot of work depicting man made structures but her first and clear love is nature. For me personally, her most compelling work is her most minimal, when all she wants to show you is one simple idea; the delicate lacework of bare winter trees against the sky, or the rush and swirl of water over rocks. But regardless of her imagery there is no doubt that she has long since mastered this artform.

Susan Siegel

"Solitary Goat (Blue)"  30" x 24"  oil on canvas 2011

"Solitary Goat (blue)" detail

untitled  12" x 12"  oil on linen  2011

untitled - detail

"Cow Swing"  30" x 24"  oil on canvas  2011

Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Swing (French: L'escarpolette), 1767, Wallace Collection, London

Susan Siegel clearly has a lot of fun with her work, playing around with the conventions of 18th century rococo painting and portraiture. The rococo style flourished especially under the opulent reign of Louis XIV in France as a kind of reaction to the rigid formality of the baroque style. It gave way to neo-classicism and ever since has been seen by many as the representing height of frivolous extravagance. Siegel replaces the courtiers and royal figures with half human animal headed figures and paints her work with an ethereal expressionism. There is something about the combination that strikes me as both humorous and plaintive. It can be difficult to relate to the figures in actual rococo art. The excesses and selfishness of the fortunate, born into a life of leisure and luxury, not bothering to look beyond the causes of their circumstances, can easily evoke a sense of moral indignation. But through Siegel's lens we are reminded of their all too human frailty. People in such times and places (and they're with us still) may not be so callous as we imagine. Just silly. Foolish and all too human. It's a pretty good trick considering she gives them animal faces. And that being said, those faces, executed with such simplicity and flourish, are wonderfully expressive. Part of what is at work here is a reminder that what separates mankind from the animals is really nothing but an indistinct shading of grays. So let's try not to take ourselves too seriously, OK?
You can see more at the artist's website: susanlsiegel.com
...and congratulations to Ms. Siegel on being included in New American Paintings 98

Frank Webster

"Office Building, Tokyo"  acrylic on canvas  40" x 60"  2011

"Black Tower and Branches"  acrylic on canvas  40" x 30"  2011

"Plastic Bags"  acrylic on canvas  60" x 80"  2009

"Departure"  acrylic on canvas  86" x 65"  2009

"Black Towers"  acrylic on canvas  72" x 48"  2010

I posted a couple of Frank Webster's early works back when this blog was still pretty new (Jan. 2009). He's been busy since then and a subtle transformation has taken place. His work, which had always taken a minimalist approach to post-industrial landscapes, has added a brooding and melancholy atmosphere. In his own statement he writes that "the sharp juxtaposition of technology and romanticism are evocative of the moment — and environment — in which we find ourselves presently." It's very much a modern aesthetic and yet it reminds me of the romantic landscapes of the 18th and 19th century in which artists depicted the dramatic ruins of antiquity. Those artists were, in some sense, comparing their rising culture and civilization to one just as grand but long vanished. It was a Momento Mori for the ambitions of their time. We lost sight of that humility over the next two centuries but now it returns. What Frank Webster captures here, is our own current sense of existence in the twilight of greatness. Our futures are no longer filled with rocket travel and flying cars. We see apocalypse everywhere. But there's no sense of horror in his work. It is more subtle and probably more accurate than that. It depicts instead, the somber, maybe even nostalgic beauty of a gradual fading and slow decline. Perhaps our culture will end not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but something more akin to a long wistful sigh...
You can see more at his website: www.fwebster.com

Jack O'Hearn IV

Laundry Room (Informal Domesticity)  2010

Oil on Paper w/ Solvent Transferred Text  16" x 22"

"Tub, Sink & Washer" (Informal Domesticity)  2010

Oil on Paper w/ Inkjet Transferred Text  16" x 22"

"Sleeping Quarters" (Informal domesticity)  2012

Oil on Paper w/ Solvent Transferred Text  16" x 22"

"Obstacle" (Part of Drawing Wall)  2010

Etching & Letterpress on Antique Paper   8.5" x 11"

"Informal Relations"  Installation View

Jack O'Hearn, whose work I previously posted in Feb. 2009, recently had an installation/exhibition called "Informal Relations," held at the Art Lofts Gallery at UW-Madison. The work addresses the universality of the squatter experience around the globe; life on the margins, making do with a minimum of resources in sometimes enormous sprawling shantytowns from Mumbai to Nairobi, Istanbul and Rio de Janeiro. There are several layers of engaging conceit here. The original paintings that anchor the show are presented in the format of 19th century scientific illustration, echoing an era of aggressive colonialism when blindness to social injustice was rampant despite a supposed culture of enlightened scientific rationalism. These paintings were based on still lives set up and lived with in the artist's studio. By transferring some of that material into the gallery space we are confronted by how little has changed. The exploitation of and disregard for the marginalized people of the world is in no danger of becoming a thing of the past. Their way of life is re-presented in the gallery space the way cultural artifacts from a remote village might have been displayed in a museum  a hundred years ago. Despite the fact that you could probably walk out of the gallery, down a few streets and into a nearby alley to see the next best thing. I imagine the acerbity of the wit was lost on more than a few gallery patrons.

You can see more from the exhibition as well as his wonderful realist paintings at jackohearn.com