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Toni De Blasi's small, thin frame is dwarfed by gargantuan "strokes of paint." Reminiscent of Lichtenstein's ideogram paintings, these "strokes of paint" are entirely sculptural. Oddly, it is the small picture frame which holds
Implied movement also animates the picture frame of Janet lndick's work. Dynamic arrangements of ribbon-like elements move the eye in and out of the frame. The reflective glitter of shards of mylar further articulate the surface which is covered with painted slashes of color.
It is significant that a number of works in this exhibition are indeed picture frames - windows from which the artist has escaped to capture a new dimension of expression. Barbara Zucker's free standing sculpture Three-II (Small Frame) is an elongated frame, and the subject matter is the idea of animated space - a space in which there is a tension, an anticipation of movement. Seemingly barely balanced, its serrated edges evoke a cartoon ideogram for "wham-bang," as if the piece had already toppled over and hit the floor. In this work she deals with space by manipulating balance and reinforces the implied movement with adroit use of color.
Ever since the Renaissance, the four sides of a canvas served as a window through which to look. The conventions of linear perspective and the imagery of trompe l'oeil created an illusion of three-dimensional space. As long as subject matter remained compatible\ this convention served well. It was the choice of the dancer as subject matter which prompted Degas to turn to sculpture as a medium through which he could express the idea of movement in a way which he found impossible in painting. It is with Degas that we begin to trace the development of modern sculpture. A similiar frustration with the restrictions of the two-dimensional picture plane led Braque and Picasso to glean from the spatial explorations of such post-impressionists as Gauguin and Cezanne, and to invent what came to be called "cubism." It revolutionized painting and bridged a gap between painting and sculpture.
Although the ancient Greeks painted the statuary which we have come to admire for pure form, devoid of color, we tend to think of painted sculpture as a 20th century phenomenon in Western Art. It should not come as a surprise, however, that paint should have become such an important ingredient in contemporary sculpture. The most innovative contributions to the development of modern sculpture have been made by artists who were painters - many of whom turned to sculpture to find solutions to concepts they could not express within the context of conventional painting. Moreover, what is painting and what is sculpture has become blurred. The interplay of one with the other serves as a focus for this exhibition.
Painted in bright color, toy-like in design, The Army, by Pat Keck, draws from the deep well of folk art. The mask-like faces evoke images of war-painted natives whose origins are obscure. While an element of play is felt here, there is a strong sense of the macabre in the limp, inertly dangling figures.
Animated and colorful, Fine's train is pure fun. It finds ancestors in Miro and Klee. Coogan's work, while indeed playful, has a vaguely menacing side. His creature-like sculpture has an other-wordly quality evoking doubt about its friendliness. Both these works have roots in Surrealism.
There is also a strong element of play here. This playfulness was apparent in the work of Pi.casso and Miro; and, in spite of Dada's inherent nihilism, play was ever present. It finds expression in divergent ways. In this exhibition it is particularly illustrated in the works of Joan Fine, Jay Coogan, and Pat Keck.
The work of painter-sculptor Peter Reginato is a quintessential example. His largely anthropomorphic forms stand on legs, and they assume attitudinal poses, as if leaning into a lumbering gait. As carefully arranged as are the sculptural elements, it is the painted surface which gives the work complete coherence. Color relationships glide from one element to another as the eye moves around the form. An over-all spattering of color unifies the whole.
It is not the act of escaping the two dimensional picture frame which is new in these works. Certainly that was first accomplished two generations ago. The cubists recogni:zed and treated the canvas as a flat surface rather than a window, and redefined the way one viewed three-dimensional space. The final flip toward us was made with Stella's shaped canvases and by an array of painter-sculptors in the 1960's. What is important here is an expressive painterly intention which functions, within a single work, on an equal level with the form.
In contrast, Carolee Thea's heavy frame bristles with architectonic elements and memory provoking images - dentil molding across the bottom, an arched pediment, acanthus leaf relief - all from the Italian Renaissance. Within the frame she paints a beautiful grisaille rendering of a rhinoceros head over a grid of the very sort used by the Renaissance painters to anchor their linear perspective. As a final fillip, the work takes a tentative step onto the floor via a pseudopodia! extension of leather strips cascading onto the floor surface.
the spreading composition together.