The Dystopian Demimonde of Dreams
New paintings by Whit Conrad at The Lionheart Gallery
by Douglas P. Clement
Painter Whit Conrad traffics in twisted, opaque narratives that haunt dark dreams like harbingers of what awaits in the netherworld, reaching up into REM sleep like tentacles of psychic doom, and populated by grotesque characters from some dystopian demimonde.
More frightening is each painting’s likely representation of our actual waking status—what we would see and feel if the veil of protective delusion required for self-preservation were lifted away.
Subject matter aside (admittedly difficult given its primacy and power), these works are gorgeous, hypnotic, masterful, and stunning as a suite of 11 canvases as presented in the exhibit Playing What’s Not There, continuing through July 2 at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge, N.Y. (A talk by the artist is June 10 in a 4 to 6 p.m. event.)
Conrad’s riotous narratives initially obfuscate his technical dexterity, proficiency with composition, finesse with the color palette and flourishes like islands of impasto that, when isolated visually, feel oddly Cezanne-like.
The standout work in the show is entitled “Electors.” In a room where the black-and-white tile floor seems to have suffered some warp of time or space, a tall, lean, cigarette-smoking misshapen praying mantis man casts a ballot at the front of a line of freakish voters, some skeletons, one headless and others almost spectral, as a devil-like character lingers in the doorway. Not coincidentally, Conrad painted it at the time of the U.S. presidential election.
Each of Conrad’s painting begins with a single dreamlike image. “Together we evolve, complicate, suffer, celebrate, transform,” the artist says. “Without a map and without direction, we are free to wander recklessly. Eventually, the painting itself takes over as guide, steering us toward some unexpected destination.”
For Conrad, who lives in Manhattan and Bedford, N.Y., and has a studio in Long Island City, Queens, being an artist is a bit of an unexpected destination. He’s a former corporate lawyer who went on to study at the New York Studio School.
The title of the exhibit is a reference to a Miles Davis quote: “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.” The artist’s son-in-law, Lucas Farrell, says of the paintings in the exhibit, “In this new collection of vivid, playful, and idiosyncratic paintings, Whit Conrad has applied the jazz legend’s advice to his own work with signature gusto. While Conrad’s paintings often begin in a recognizable setting … they always journey into those liminal zones between notes. … .”
One sweet spot in the exhibit is the vertical pairing of “Come as You Are” with its harlequin, Commedia dell’Arte character, alien being and Kurt Weill-esque fembot, and the painting “Lady Luck,” in which a naked woman sits at a table drinking wine with a distracted skeleton.
Whether intentionally or not, a distinctive motif running through the paintings are toppled glasses and spilled wine. While spilling wine on purpose is a rite done to court good luck, the images in Conrad’s paintings are ominous, more akin to the Roman belief that wine spilled unintentionally is an omen of disaster. Instead of chasing away the 10 plagues, as spilling wine does in the Jewish tradition, Conrad makes the motif symbolic of the plagues of our time, with no judgment or filter.
A mature artist poised on the verge of wider discovery, Conrad was singled out by Forbes in 2016 as an artist to watch. The dean of the New York Studio School, painter Graham Nickson, recognized Conrad’s talent by acquiring one of the artist’s paintings for his office. For collectors, buying now is a smart move.
Playing What’s Not There is a brilliant show not to be missed—and the best kept secret about the Lionheart Gallery, besides its collection of terrific works by a corps of top-tier contemporary artists, is its location in Pound Ridge, a town with enough lifestyle amenities to make a daytrip worthwhile.
The Lionheart Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information and directions to the gallery at 27 Westchester Avenue in Pound Ridge, N.Y., visit the website at www.thelionheartgallery.com or call the gallery at 914.764.8689.
Reclaiming What We Know About Life
Karen Vogel’s New Works at The Lionheart Gallery
by Douglas P. Clement
Effective communication takes place through many different modes of expression, most of them nonverbal. Connecticut artist Karen Vogel chooses the term Typographical Abstraction to describe a main body of work whose implied meanings are embedded like pure emotion in a visual language of shapes, lines, symbols, letters, and, sometimes, entire words.
The two mixed-media-on-wood-panel works that open her exhibit Postscript, running through July 2 at The Lionheart Gallery in Pound Ridge, N.Y., are among the strongest pieces in the show and illustrate how deftly Vogel deploys medium to buoy message.
“Roma,” with its geometric and fluid shapes in black, taupe and ivory, has the weight of classical elegance and suggests the geography of an empire. The sideways word “is” near the center feels like a declaration of not only bold existence but also a perpetuation of that robust status. “Is” in Latin, the language of Roma, is est, and one university primer on the verb begins by saying, “Let us begin with being.”
It’s a sentiment both simple and profound, and one that resonates deeply for Karen Vogel, whose work summons the symbolism of print, typography, and architectural and organic forms “to explore the monumental shifts that have emerged from the breakdown of social cohesion—the infrastructure that supports social structure and communication that links us as social beings.”
In other words, we’ve lost our sense of “being,” and Vogel is determined to do her part to stop the devolution. The artist’s interplay of positive and negative spaces creates tension between what she describes as cohesion and disorder, with the agitation caused by chaos chafing against order defining Vogel’s artistic voice.
In “Worlds Apart,” a thin red line enters the visual equation, segregating a half-circle around an inner sanctum from outlying districts in a landscape reflective of modern times; worlds, as in countries and societies, are now separated by dogma, policy and walls erected by hard-liners.
At this moment in history, especially, the overarching evil at the heart of societal dissolution is a shared failure to communicate. In Postscript, any suggestion of geopolitical tensions is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The breakdown of meaningful discourse and interaction is much more fundamental and global for Vogel—and she rages against by building a new world order on a base of hand-cut stencils embellished with layers of multiple forms, textures, patterns, and processes.
By the time you reach “Sidewinder” and “Memorial Park,” two of the nine monoprints joining the 11 mixed-media-on-wood-panel works in the exhibit, the catharsis they offer feels perfect.
Without “saying” a word, “Sidewinder” powerfully conveys the vibrancy and decorum of the Jazz Age, while “Memorial Park,” feels like a gilded lobby in an elegant skyscraper and all the buttoned-up affirmation and aspiration that implied. Suddenly you remember why “being” and being present are so vital.
A couple of weeks after Postcript opened, MIT Professor Sherry Turkle gave a commencement talk at Harvard University touching on themes covered in her latest book, “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age,” which investigates “how a flight from conversation undermines our relationships, creativity, and productivity.”
“We need to reclaim what we know about life,” she said, according to a story in Harvard Magazine. “When we reclaim our attention, our solitude, and our friendship, we will have a better chance to reclaim our communities, our democracy, and our shared common purpose. We had a love affair with a technology that seemed magical. But like great magic, it worked by commanding our attention and we took our attention off each other. Now we are ready, across the generations, to remember who we are: creatures of history, of deep psychology, of complex relationships, and of conversations artless, risky, and face-to-face. The choice ahead will not be easy, but perhaps neither hard nor easy, but those other opposites of easy: complex, evolved, and demanding. It’s time to make the corrections, and take stock of all the skills we’ll need—and of how little technology is going to help us unless we remember all the things we know about life and living.”
Professor Turkle’s words perfectly sum up the themes and hopes of Postcript. You can take stock by seeing this exhibit; your future equilibrium may depend on it.
Postscript continues through July 2, with a talk by the artist scheduled for June 10 in an event from 4 to 6 p.m.
The Lionheart Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information and directions to the gallery at 27 Westchester Avenue in Pound Ridge, N.Y., visit the website at www.thelionheartgallery.com or call the gallery at 914.764.8689.
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