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July Show:
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A Bay Area product of the turbulent sixties, Guy Colwell, known for his signature style through books, comics, graphic novels, and art exhibitions, depicts the grittiness of social experience with crisp and unflinching precision. Each of Colwell’s beings seems to search for escape from deception, violence or suffering.
His figures and faces are patiently crafted on canvas but radiate the edginess of underground comic traditions as he takes on many themes of immediate social concern including disasters, terrorism, and war.
Paintings in this July show includes “Litter Beach”, a monumental piece taking seven years to paint, “Candy and Guns”, which addresses child soldiers, “Disaster”, a reflection on 9/11 and Katrina, “Aftermath”, a view of our soldiers in Iraq and “Rebuild”, a philosophical consideration of the inevitable cycles of destruction and reconstruction.
A strong believer in artists’ participation in public discourse about current issues, Colwell sees art as a means of expression and protest. San Francisco’s Capobianco Gallery closed in 2004 after the gallery owner received multiple threats and was physically assaulted following the display of an earlier Colwell painting, “The Abuse”, his artistic response to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
A clever user of metaphor, muralist Rocky Baird addresses the horrors and triumphs of history by challenging viewer’s perceptions of California’s past. And whether perceived as offspring or parents of his Bay Area murals, Baird’s large format drawings stand on their own as sensitive works of art.
These monumental drawings, most rendered in black and white on brown paper, frequently bear a delicate third color, the red line, whereby Baird transfers the image to the mural wall. His red pencil lets Baird know what is transferred, while a kind of carbon paper behind the drawing reproduces the image on the wall.
Providing a direct glimpse into the artist’s process, these studies showcase Baird’s assured moments as well as his misgivings. A patch of paper with a rendering of a native American’s head is taped over an initial drawing, while scratchy notes and instructions are visible elsewhere.
Using a wide range of traditional and alternative media, Baird’s drawings are mounted onto panels and preserved under wax.
These drawings resulted from the following projects:
The Key System Mural. “La Vida Electrica Se Mantiene Junta.” (The Electric Life is Safe Together). *Piedmont Avenue. Oakland, CA 2005.
The Ohlone Mural: “The Capture of Solid. The Escape of Soul.” Piedmont Avenue. Oakland, CA . 2006
Concepts for future projects about the architect and social pioneer, Julia Morgan.
Sometimes a painter’s moralistic stance regarding social issues leads less to a dialogue with the viewer than a monologue by the artist. “Veiled Threats”, a set of paintings by Marty McCorkle, reflects on the war weariness of our decade without pointing fingers.
McCorkle places his figures in remote places and non-descript garb to seemingly refer to a distant, unspecified time, making the paintings less a discussion of current politics than one of the dilemma of the soldier.
Suggesting the loneliness and nostalgia experienced by the archetypical soldier at war, McCorkle’s vaguely military figures are not so much bracing for battle as idly burning time far from the familiar, in dark, desert like places. Though undepicted, the tight cluster of figures within McCorkle's canvases implies the enemy's presence, the veiled threats.
In “Border Guards”, a row of rocks—presumably the border—stretches to the horizon at sunrise as two figures, one asleep and the other vigilant, occupy the foreground. In “Sleeping Soldiers”, male figures doze around a small fire, though they are hardly discernible behind swaths of bright paint with which McCorkle smears these otherwise realist paintings.
In “Back Before”, one sees through McCorkle’s smears a more whimsical scene of a man walking on stilts, his impossibly long legs reflected in a pool, suggesting a deep longing for breezy prewar times.
Artists on exhibition at the Esteban Sabar Gallery include Sue Averell, Bethany Ayres, Rocky Baird, Nancy Ballard, Trish Booth, Ron Carter & Deborah Rowan, Mario Chiodo, Guy Colwell, Orion Fredericks, Eric Helsley, Albert Hwang, Wendell Jones, Zack Jones, John Kinstler, Douglas Light, Donna Mendes, Marty McCorkle, Kenney Mencher, Carol Paquet, Tim Phelan, Dana Porteos, Diego Rios, Erik Rogers, Bernadette Sale and Kevin Slagle.
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