Benny Fountain

My previous post featured some work currently on display here in Portland, OR. In the gallery immediately next door (Froelick Gallery) is work by Benny Fountain. So there's twice the reason to head down there. The work is mostly, but not exclusively, night scenes. Most of it depicts scenes from the artist's kitchen. The location is clearly one of convenience. The subject matter is not what you see. The subject matter is seeing. I've always enjoyed impressionism as much as anyone, but it is hard these days to see the revolution that it was; An entirely new way of seeing, expressing light itself, how it shimmers and refracts and scatters about the world. But I have often felt that the soft diffused brushwork of the impressionist technique seemed least appropriate for bright sunny days when hard edges and precise clarity are so notable. Mornings and evenings always worked better. However, night... night is the time for impressionism. At night the boundaries between objects begin to blur in the shadows. Colors fade and bleed into one another and the mind struggles to put the pieces together in their proper order. Benny Fountain has carried these ideas forward to perfectly capture how the eye and the mind see in imperfect light. By doing so he evokes the joy of seeing, of looking and noticing that each time you look, things are a little bit different. His earlier work which demonstrated a mastery of color has given way to the muted tones of darkness, but the color is no less central. And the geometric configurations of his kitchen scenes provide a wonderful counterbalance to the loose gestural technique.
You can see more at the artist's website: www.bennyfountain.com

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