A Jubilant Confluence
By Tom Wachunas
“… in both life and art, we register only
those details that actually matter to us. What, then, are the roles of seeing
relationships, accidents, morphologies, systems? Do we communicate what we see
in metaphors? Allusions? Parables? Abstractions? Structures? What, indeed, are
the processes of thinking and wondering that make science and the arts work?” - Jack McWhorter
EXHIBIT: Simply Burning – Paintings by Jack
McWhorter, THROUGH MARCH 8 at Gallery 121, 121 Lincoln Way West, downtown
Massillon. Hours: Monday – Thursday 11:00 a.m. – 11:00 p.m. / Friday – Saturday
11:00 a.m. – midnight / closed Sundays
If you’ve not
ventured into downtown Massillon in the last several months, don’t be too
deceived by the name of the venue now hosting a solo exhibit by painter Jack
McWhorter. While Gallery 121 isn’t exclusively an art gallery per se, from the
outset the owners of this new upscale nightspot for food and cocktails were
seriously committed to sating aesthetic appetites as well by providing a very
long white wall, brightly lit and fitted to hang original art.
I think it useful
if not necessary to introduce those of you not yet familiar with McWhorter’s
work by directing you to a review I wrote in 2012: http://artwach.blogspot.com/2010/02/molecularities-and-other-quarknesses.html
In many ways, what
I said then is still apropos to this collection of 16 paintings, most of them
from 2014. McWhorter continues to explore the confluence of art and science – a
remarkable formalization of intuition. The push-and-pull dynamic between organic
and geometric shapes and structures still constitutes his visual syntax. And
the paintings continue to evoke cosmological and/or biological diagrams, models,
or paradigms that scientists use to delineate the workings of esoteric physical
phenomena and ephemeral forces in flux.
Yet these recent
works are invested with a distinctly more intensified painterly panache than in
the past. Even when a layer of paint gets scraped away or thinned, the overall
character of the markmaking exudes a rigorous confidence. Coupled with a
brighter, more elevated palette, many of these newer pieces pulse, seethe and
crackle with what can only be called jubilant energy in the way they describe
excited interactions of rhythm, pattern and motion – systems or processes
simultaneously matured and nascent, static and morphing.
A particularly
effective component of the exhibit are the small reproductions of line drawings
with text notes mounted alongside the paintings. The drawings appear to be the
germs of ideas for structuring the picture plane, i.e., establishing a
pictorial architecture. The notes – streamings of single words and brief
phrases – often read like a lyrical flow of consciousness, as in this example
accompanying the painting titled Sudden
Change : Living system/ rendering
examples of time / choices symbolic / outside, inside/ impossible to draw /
dwell within
Think of these
combined elements – sketches and text - as conceptual guideposts or prompts for
interpreting nuances of meaning in the paintings. And in the process, you might
consider how it is indeed possible to articulate intriguing poetry with a paint
brush.
PHOTOS, from top: Fire and Purity, oil and graphite powder
on paper, 20x26 inches, 2011 / Fire
Water, oil on canvas, 54x60 inches, 2014
/ Aggregate, oil on canvas, 54x60 inches, 2014 / Sudden Change, oil on canvas, 34x40 inches, 2014 / Desire and Change, oil on canvas, 34x40
inches, 2014
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