Tad Lauritzen Wright | the bacchus sessions

the

bacchus sessions

tad lauritzen wright

DLG

davidluskgallery.com

4540 poplar memphis 901.767.3800

516 hagan nashville 615.780.9990

the

bacchus sessionss tad lauritzen wright fall 2014

Blur Blackout Red Eyed and Blue Dabbler Lucid Holding

High Beams Cold Spell Psychonaut Faded Daze White Out Gumballer

tad lauritzen wrights In the same “Southern Casualist” vein as his recent exposés, Lauritzen Wright continues to adapt naïve forms and shocking color to shape a narrative referencing a return to understanding and expressing the fun of using paint – in any form and texture. “My “Southern Casualist” habits allow mistakes to be seen, reveal first thoughts and moves, while considering the subject as an equal to material application.

The cultural and classical idea of Bacchus (the Roman god of wine and excess) and his related frenzy takes the forefront of the artist’s most recent body of work – familiar single line drawings and paintings, word finds and text paintings, all reveling in Bacchus, and thematic focus on classic examples of cultural excessiveness. Alongside his 2-D work, Lauritzen Wright tends to his ‘game player’ personality incorporating Bacchanalia installations: a beer pong table; a magic 8 ball disco ball; and painted cardboard building boxes that spell out debaucheries.

Blotter

Jumble Boxes

A Song for the Deaf

Reflections on Ice Breaking

Candy Flipper

Nymph’s Pale Brew

Unless Our Judgements Warp

Something to Blame

Night Cap Quiz

Tad Lauritzen Wright’s ‘Bacchus Sessions’ at David Lusk Gallerys

Photo by Michael Donahue

“At least someone is having fun,” I thought, looking at Tad Lauritzen Wright’s exhibition, The Bacchus Sessions, at David Lusk Gallery through Nov. 15. We are, it seems, living under a worldwide cloud of death, dearth and disorder permeated by perfidy and plunder, so it’s gratifying to be able to tell people to go see paintings and drawings that lift the spirit and gently tickle the funny — or punny — bone. Not that there’s not a serious edge to The Bacchus Sessions. Lauritzen Wright employs his eye and abundant imagination here to comment on excess and self-destruction though the figures of the ancient Greek gods of wine and ecstasy; yes, Dionysus, the great heedless impeller of the pleasure principle, also shows up.

The show could be divided into three styles, two of which derive from the artist’s long practice, first, of creating large paintings that are mystifying grids of letters, some of which form legible words or names, as in the old puzzles in comic books; and, second, the single-line drawings, that is, without lifting pen or brush from the surface, that result in lively, cartoonlike images whose tangled lines make their own puzzles.

The third mode seems new to Lauritzen Wright’s work, consisting of gaudy, kitschy portraits of pop culture figures formed by squeezing pigment from the tube directly on canvas. These portraits include figures notable for their consumption of alcohol and drugs or at least for living larger than life in an annihilating manner, among them Liz Taylor, Kurt Cobain, Judy Garland and Ernest Hemingway. One of the grid/word puzzle paintings also incorporates names of people renowned for their extracurricular consumption or living out on the razor’s edge, including John Belushi, Dean Martin, Jack Kerouac, Lester Bangs and others.

The point, I would say, is that what Greek myth celebrated as a source of inspiration and rapture contemporary reality turns inside-out. We are not gods and cannot, in a sense, hold our liquor. (Nor could many of the gods, as the tales tell us.) That dichotomy is why ancient myth remains a touchstone of psychological and cultural meaning for us to play against. The artist distills — ha-ha — this theme into a series of stately and goofy tableaux that carry hints of Picasso, in his whimsical mood, and New Yorker artist William Steig but imbued with his own brand of glee. Let’s not make the mistake of assuming, though, that these drawings are pure zaniness. Whether a large acrylic on canvas like Nymph’s Pale Brew or smaller graphite on paper like Dionysus and Eros or Bacchus Triumph, Lauritzen Wright manages to convey a feeling of the awesome dignity of sacred mysteries as well as profane shenanigans.

The exhibition’s real sense of poignancy derives from the intense portraits of cultural heroes or anti-heroes who destroyed themselves through suicide or the longer death by addiction. Marvin Gaye — who, also depicted, was murdered by his father and is a martyr of a different order — Elizabeth Taylor, Anna Nicole Smith and Kurt Cobain are painted in thick lurid colors that seem to reflect the garishness of their lives, while Garland and Hemingway are starkly rendered in harrowing black, white and gray. “ … for many a time/I have been half in love with easeful Death,” wrote John Keats in “Ode to a Nightingale,” and there is always about our gods and heroes an irresistible leaning toward oblivion, as if the fever-pitch of existence, whether divine or human, guarantees a quick burning and snuffing out.

Excessive and monstrous consumption imply an excessive and monstrous dividend, glamorous, perhaps, certainly sordid and inevitable. In this exhibition, Lauritzen Wright captures all that ambiguity.

Fredric Koeppel The Commercial Appeal

Dionysus and Eros Pan and Dionysus Bacchus Triumph Maenads with an Effigy of Dionysus Dionysus in Absondem

Pleasure in the Pathless

Solutions Come and Solutions Go

Faulkner Franklin Msquoted

Marvin Judy

Kurt

Ernest

Liz Anna Nicole

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret

the bacchus sessions Blur, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Franklin Misquoted, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 22x30”

Blackout, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Marvin, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

Red Eyed and Blue, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Judy, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

Dabbler, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Kurt, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

Lucid, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Ernest, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

Holding, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Liz, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

High Beams, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

Anna Nicole, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 20x16”

Cold Spell, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20”

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x48”

Psychonaut, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20” Faded Daze, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20” White Out, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20” Gumballer, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 24x20” Blotter, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x36” Jumble Boxes, 2014, mixed media, dimensions vary Reflections on Ice Breaking, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x36” Candy Flipper, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 22x18” Nymph’s Pale Brew, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 36x48” Unless Our Judgements Warp, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 36x48” Something to Blame, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 16x20” Night Cap Quiz, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x60” Dionysus and Eros, 2014, graphite on paper, 15x11” Pan and Dionysus, 2014, graphite on paper, 15x11” Bacchus Triumph, 2014, graphite on paper, 15x11” Maenads with an Effigy of Dionysus, 2014, graphite on paper, 11x15” Dionysus in Absondem, 2014, graphite on paper, 15x11” Pleasure in the Pathless, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x36” Solutions Come and Solutions Go, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 48x48” Faulkner, 2014, acrylic on canvas, 22x30”

front cover: A Song for the Deaf back cover: Pink Elephant

David Lusk Gallery exhibits and sells art created by a talented group of artists – living in the Midsouth and beyond. The artwork at DLG defines the creative spirit, diversity and excitement of our region.

DLG originally opened its doors in 1995 in Memphis with a commitment to exhibiting art that is well crafted, always intriguing, sometimes meditative and frequently thought provoking. DLG’s unique program and vision have made it a recognized destination for what is current and important in art of the Southeastern US. The Gallery is located in the heart of East Memphis, at Laurelwood.

In early 2014 the Gallery opened an outpost in Nashville in the happening Wedgewood/Houston Neighborhood.”

© 2014 David Lusk Gallery. Artist Tad Lauritzen Wright and the Gallery retain sole copyright to the contributions to this book.

4540 poplar memphis 901.776.3800 516 hagan nashville 615.780.9990 davidluskgallery.com

DLG

davidluskgallery.com

4540 poplar memphis 901.767.3800

516 hagan nashville 615.780.9990