Come What May, Part 74
by Tom Wachunas
EXHIBIT: 74th Annual May Show at The
Little Art Gallery. THROUGH MAY 31,
2016 / located in the North Canton Library, 185 North Main Street, North
Canton, Ohio / 330.499.4712 x312 / www.ncantonlibrary.org
Full disclosure:
I’m excited and grateful to report that I do have a piece in this show, and it
was awarded Second Place in the Mixed Media category. I wrote about this newest
work here on April 1. Here’s the link if you’re interested:
If only for the
disappointing dearth of non-objective abstract works here (one exception being
the First Place in Mixed Media winner, Daniel Vaughn’s Lego decoration, Which Way?), this exhibit is certainly
not a comprehensive survey of the visual arts in Stark County. Interestingly
enough, though, the 52 works in the show are deftly mounted (thank you,
Elizabeth Blakemore) so that the overall content seems more varied than it actually is. In the 2D realm, the
preponderance of landscape and nature imagery is punctuated with a few other
subjects, among them figural/portraiture and still-life.
Yet within this
generally limited range of genres, there is an entertaining diversity of
stylistic and technical approaches ranging from the sweet and ornamental to the
genuinely compelling, from the ridiculous (Mike Uhren’s Red Hot Sexy Smoker, Second Place winner in the Acrylic category,
gives dubious new meaning to “eye-popping”) to the sublime.
Among the more
sublime landscapes are two small, horizontal gems of subtle light: Heather Bullach’s oil painting, The Rising
Sun, confidently rendered in unfussy brushwork, and Ron Watson’s Rainclouds Near Hartville, a darker study in colored pencil that was
awarded First Place in the Drawings and Original Prints category.
The Second Place
winner in that category, a black-and-white woodcut print titled Veuve, by William M. Bogdan, is one of the few pieces here really
potent with both cerebral and emotive heft. Call it thoughtful gravitas. His
arresting entry is an arrangement of two figures – husband and wife, presumably
(Veuve is French for widow)- caught
in a moment of loss or mourning or letting go. The seated husband figure is a
blank white silhouette – a ghostly emptiness - still holding on to the
recumbent wife. Particularly fascinating is the miniaturized version of an
earlier Bogdan print (Marriage in
Silverdale, from 2014), presented here as a picture in the background of
the composition, depicting a married couple standing. As Veuve is a chapter in a history, it could also be seen as a symbol
of Bogdan’s own history as an artist.
Haunting, too, is
Erin T. Mulligan’s startling, hyper-detailed Self Portrait as a Grown-Up. In this elegantly creepy picture of
angst, her beehive hairdo is a
weighty home to demonic bugs.
And speaking of
chapters in history, Michelle Mulligan’s Art
“Her-Story” (Second Place award in the Three-Dimensional category) is a
delightfully crafted parade of doll-like figurines, all meticulously adorned
after some of art history’s most iconic representations of women. Gourd-geous
work.
This year’s “Best
In Show” award brings up the same concerns I’ve expressed in the past about the
whole idea of juried art shows. Just blowin’ in the wind, I guess. Still, to
remind you, here’s an excerpt from last year’s May Show review: … designating prizes, especially the “Best
in Show,” can be particularly problematic if not plain silly…It’s not as if
there exists a magic formula or universally accepted canon of standards for
determining the last word on aesthetic superiority. Such awards are necessarily
declarations of opinions (albeit educated ones, one would hope) – a decidedly
subjective exercise – on the part of the jurors.
So it is that this year’s honors went
to Pat Waltz for her fabric, stoneware, and embroidery sculpture called Petite Pinto. What can I say about this
curious tchotchke? With all due respect for Waltz’s remarkable technical skill,
not much…lest I be accused of beating a cute horse.
PHOTOS, from top: Red Hot Sexy Smoker, by Mike Uhren / Petite Pinto, by Pat Waltz / Veuve, by William Bogdan / Self Portrait as a Grown-Up, by Erin
Mulligan / The Rising Sun, by Heather
Bullach
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