Euphoric Palimpsests
By Tom Wachunas
“…My paintings undertake a topoanalysis of
spaces that have invited us to come out of ourselves. The paintings can be seen
as contemporary impressions of the constructed world and its impact on or
relationship with natural spaces, underscoring our persistent need to
understand ourselves through space…”
- Jack McWhorter
EXHIBIT: ENGRAVED FIELDS, recent paintings by
Jack McWhorter / curated by Tom Wachunas / at the Canton Museum of Art, THROUGH
MARCH 4, 2018 / 1001 Market Avenue North, Canton, Ohio
Palimpsest - noun, pa·limp·sest \ ˈpa-ləm(p)-ˌsest
, pə-ˈlim(p)-
sest
1 : A manuscript or
piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on
effaced earlier writing.
2 : Something having
usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface
3: Something reused or
altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
My first
encounter with the art of Jack McWhorter – Associate Professor of Painting and
Art Department Coordinator, Kent State University at Stark - was in 2010 at his Malone University solo
exhibit of paintings, called “Forces Constant.” It was immediately clear to me
then, and continues to be today, that he’s a painter’s painter - a masterful
colorist who revels in the materiality of oil paint, the physicality of the
brushed line or shape, the fluidity of intuitive, vigorous markmaking.
Since that 2010
exhibit, I’ve been increasingly fascinated by the evolving trajectory of his
aesthetic, and very grateful for the opportunity to curate this collection of
15 new works on view at the Canton Museum of Art. The exhibit is luscious
evidence (like thick icing on a cake) of his ongoing pursuit of what he calls
in his statement “a topoanalysis of spaces that have invited us to come out of
ourselves.” In his 1958 book, The Poetics
of Space, the French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), defined
topoanalysis as “the systematic psychological study of the sites of our
intimate lives.”
McWhorter refers to
this group of paintings as ‘engraved fields.’ The reference is an apt one if you think of fields
in the sense of being tactile expanses of forms occupying a structured space or
environment, as well as regions of ideological or emotional activity. His
fields, then, are both physical and conceptual arrangements, inscribed or
otherwise articulated via layers of abstract calligraphy describing poetic
singularities.
Each
layer of these painterly palimpsests represents a moment in time, either brief
or protracted. There’s a remarkable feeling of constancy, at once fast and
slow, between the painter’s hand and eye engaged in a give-and-take dialogue.
One prompts a response from the other as compositional decisions are made and
allowed to evolve and morph within ghostly structural grids that seem to
simultaneously emerge and fade from view.
Give yourself
permission to be drawn in. Take the time to be caught up in the sheer immediacy
of the imagery. You just might get the uncanny sensation that the painted
surfaces are still arriving, still moving, still coming into being.
These…objects…breathe.
Jack McWhorter has
not set out to imitate or improve upon the look of nature. He doesn’t woo us
with cosmetic, representational illusionism. Instead, his integrated systems of
gestural and chromatic configurations are first and foremost true to themselves
– ongoing revelations of what I recently heard him describe as his “personal
archaeology.” While they might variably suggest things of private significance
such as landscapes or architectures, or fascinating ontological phenomena in
the realms of biology or chemistry, their meaning is far from exclusive. Think
of them as metaphors for how we as viewers might navigate and process “…the
sites of our intimate lives.” McWhorter’s personal archaeology in effect
invites us to re-discover our own.
Surely the most electrifying impact of these
images rests in their compelling expressivity of color. Call it chromatic
euphoria. McWhorter’s palette is so radiant, so exquisitely lambent, that it
becomes an illuminating force – a memorable form in itself.
Looking at these
exuberant paintings is to encounter sights, indeed sites, wherein the mysterious, the metaphorical, and the
mundane are conflated into elegant coexistence. Welcome to the abstract
sublime.
PHOTOS, from top: 1. Ptolemy
Diagram, 60” x 54” / 2. Ptolemy Diagram (detail) / 3. Path
of Yellow Sand, 40” x 34” / 4. Formation,
42.5” x 51” / 5. Engraved Field, 54” x 60” / 6. Signal
Tree, 40” x 34” / 7. Sky Map, 48” x 40”
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