Clockwise from upper left: (1) Promotion card for The 9th Northwest Biennial; (2) The 9th Northwest Biennial on the cover of City Arts Tacoma; (3) The 9th Northwest Biennial catalogue; and (4) The Clear Cut Future.
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I am stunned into silence by what I see. I am driving home with the radio off. My ears are ringing. I am swooning, near fainting.
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How does one explain the ephemeral? How does one capture or create a context?
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My speech is slurred. My thoughts stutter.
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Initial impressions of the works that speak strongest to me...
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Rick Araluce. The Outrage. The Fall. The Leap. Each is a small diorama of a room that was once possible filled with a strange violence. Araluce's attention to detail is meticulous. It as though the rooms have been shrunken in scale and left behind for their mysteries to be discovered. The aftermath of an event that has just occurred, or that occurred weeks ago, is frozen and presented. What detective skills do we bring to the scene?
In The Outrage, it appears that someone has kicked the door in. Were they pursuing someone? Were they looking for the box that is tucked in the attic crawlspace? Did someone witness the scene from the peephole in the other door?
In The Fall, a lightbulb has fallen from its socket and left a crater in the floor without breaking. While it has not shattered, it has heavily damaged a concrete floor. How? It is realistic yet implausible.
In The Leap, a scene similar to The Fall has occurred. A teacup has rolled (leapt?) from a shelf upon the wall to the floor below. It has left its own crater, breaking boards of a hardwood floor. It has also survived its descent. The mind boggles at the apparent force that is needed to cause this much damage, yet without consequence to the porcelain cup.
I am fascinated by the detail, by the scale, by the craftsmanship, by the love of the artist for his scenes and ambiguous narratives, by the surreality, by being unnerved by the contradictions of the scenes.
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Michael Brophy. Firewall series. Kitchen Painting series. There is a lushness to these 25 gouache paintings. They look as though panels in a graphic novel. They make don't quite make sense as a series if "read" from left to right, top to bottom. Yet there is a story to discern in the juxtaposition of one picture in the grid to it surrounding pictures—nonlinear perhaps, but present nonetheless.
They are also intensely personal, depicting his home and studio before and after it was destroyed by a fire that almost took his life. It positions me as voyeur, which makes me uncomfortable. I am forced into the role of "ambulance chaser." I want to look away, but the beauty of the flames call to me as though I am a moth. I suppose I will likewise go up in flames.
(One of the Kitchen Paintings graces the cover of the February 2009 issue of City Arts Tacoma, as seen above.)
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The 5 x 5 grid of Michael Brophy paintings echo another 5 x 5 grid across the gallery. These are the ambrotypes of Susan Seubert that depict abandoned and collected bird nests. They are very different in scope but their similar layout keeps me searching for a pattern that marries the two, something that connects them.
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Chang-Ae Song. Mass—Cloud series.
There are two sets of these paintings in the gallery. The first set includes numbers 2, 5, 3, and 6. They are composed of graphite, acrylic (red and white), and photocopied collage on paper. The graphite forms appear to be human forms—primarily legs, but also buttocks, breasts, vaginas. Do they depict births? Do they depict rapes? Do they depict body parts on a battlefield?
The second set includes numbers 22, 18, and 20. These are composed of graphite and acrylic (red) on paper. They are larger and feel more violent to me. There are still graphite forms, but they are less distinct. The acrylic paint has been applied more violently.
Viewing these paintings and thinking about their series title adds another layer of confusion and mystery for me. "Mass" implies weight to me. It implies a tumor. "Cloud" implies obfuscation. It implies haziness and a lack of clarity. It implies moisture. Both words fluctuate between their various denotations and connotations in the same way that the pencil, the paint, and the organic forms do.
"Mass" and "cloud" could mean so many things, especially in conjunction with one another. The weight of a body, the body, perhaps.
I am left unsettled.
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Isaac Layman. Self Portrait. Asleep 4.5 Minutes. Tools. I first encountered these three pieces as part of an Isaac Layman exhibit at Lawrimore Project. Although I am not as personally intrigued by Self Portrait and Asleep 4.5 Minutes as I am by Tools, they are still wonderful works. They are enormous inkjet prints that depict a hyperreal scene that could not have been taken by traditional methods of photography. And their origins in digital photography and "scanning technology" are apparent upon close inspection as the time needed to take the photograph has been captured by the camera.
Tools is my favorite of these three for the banality that it depicts in such precise detail and vivid color. I also like the playfulness of its commentary. The tools displayed on the workbench are not only wrenches and pliers and screwdrivers, but also bottles of tequila and dry gin. There is beauty on display here, although it also masks masculine violence.
Tools also reminds me of some of my other favorite Layman photos that were part of his Photographs from Inside a Whale exhibit—Sink, Sink with Lettuce, and Stove. These three archival inkjet prints also depict the beauty of the banal and ordinary.
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The Isaac Layman photographs also speak to me because I was able to have a conversation with Scott Lawrimore, owner and impresario of Lawrimore Project, and Layman himself about the works when Layman happened to stop by the Lawrimore gallery when I was there. It was interesting to hear firsthand some of the personal history and contexts that influenced the various pieces.
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I begin to remember things that I cannot quite place, at least in the immediate. I will shortly.
I have met some of the people associated with The 9th Northwest Biennial before.
I first encountered images of some of Michael Brophy's gouache paintings in The Clear Cut Future. They were from his The Chinook Jargon series, but the brushstrokes and colors are similar to the Firewall and Kitchen Paintings series.
The design work of Tae Won Yu for the Biennial logo (designed for The 8th Northwest Biennial and retained in the design work of Pei Pei Sung for number 9) echoes the design work he did for the cover of The Clear Cut Future.
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Now, I am sitting at home, reading pieces from The Clear Cut Future again. I am perusing the show catalogue of The 9th Northwest Biennial. I am meditating on the violence that is explicit and implicit in the works that grabbed me by the throat and threw to the floor of Tacoma Art Museum's Annette B. Weyerhauser's Gallery.
I am planning my next few visits to the exhibit.
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