Radiant Recall
Merry go round In the Garden Sunshine Corner Up on the Roof All the Way to China Mom's Prom
By Tom Wachunas
“Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.” -Barbara Kingsolver
“One lives in the hope of
becoming a memory.” - Antonio
Porchia
“A memory is what is left when
something happens and does not completely unhappen.” - Edward de Bono
“…The intention is not to fix or memorialize time, but instead excavate a specific memory, perpetuating movement and inviting participation. The work depicts the slippery efforts of the mind's eye to pause and preserve disintegrating memories..." – David King
EXHIBIT: Time Travel – Paintings by David King, at Vital Arts Gallery / 324 Cleveland Ave NW, downtown Canton, Ohio / Through June 12, 2021 – ONLY A FEW DAYS REMAINING !! Gallery hours are Wednesday 4:00 to 8:00 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
I often marvel at the magic of human memory.
Our ability to remember the people, places and things we experienced in the
past is a powerful and, make no mistake, mystical one.
To recall and recollect feelings, states of
mind, and even physical sensations, is a treasure. And yet it’s also a treasure
confounding in its fragility and transience. Over time, even our fondest memories
accumulate so abundantly into the mass that is our being that they can be
crushed under their own weight, like gemstones pulverized and dispersed into glistening
dust.
So if a memory,
especially an old one, can be said to be a magic show, it is nonetheless a fleeting
encounter. Such memories might require a grand sleight of mind and heart to
activate and preserve them. And interestingly enough, it is often the very potent
work of a skilled painter – a prestidigitator in his or her own right - that
can do the trick.
For this eye-popping
exhibit of oil-and-acrylic works on canvas, Cleveland Heights artist David King
was inspired by family movies and photos some 50 to 60 years old. While his imagery
is narrative in a general sort of way, it isn’t a stylistically meticulous,
literal realism at work here. Think of these loose, painterly remembrances more
as a lateral poeticizing. Memory in motion. Yes, there’s something of a
nostalgic spirit about them - a dreamlike if not surreal charm - but never one
that gets too mired in gushy sentimentality.
What makes the
sense of spontaneity and freshness in these works all the more present is King’s
intensely charged palette. There’s a not-in-Kansas-anymore quirkiness in the
way his hot fluorescent colors irradiate the scenes with a dynamic energy,
transforming so many thens into utterly new nows.
I could be
wrong, but I’m thinking that for David King, looking at all those old movie
reels or photos must surely have been an incipient experience. A personal
epiphany. So he celebrated it by wielding his paintbrush like a magic wand.
1 comment:
What a fantastic read!
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