Lyrical Improvisations
By Tom Wachunas
“Of all the arts,
abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw
well, that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colors,
and that you be a true poet. This last is essential. ”
- Vassily Kandinsky
EXHIBIT: Fractured Structures – Paintings in Oils and
Mixed Media by Christopher Triner, at Second April Galerie THROUGH AUGUST
30 / 324 Cleveland Avenue NW, downtown Canton / www.secondapril.org
I realize that
for some, perhaps many, the requirement “to draw well” in the making of an
abstract painting (as mentioned in the Kandinsky quotation above) might seem to
be counterintuitive if not outright puzzling.
Conventional thinking usually associates the term ‘drawing’ with
faithful representations of reality. In that context, to positively acknowledge
artists for their drawing abilities is to praise their skill in rendering
convincing, objective imitations – as well as idealizations - of the
recognizable world.
Kandinsky was
among the first artists in the early years of the 20th century to
arrive at a non-objective visual language which we could rightly call “fully
abstract.” In so doing, he and his fellow pioneers challenged viewers to
embrace an expanded idea of drawing to mean the spontaneous and intuitive configuration (i.e., arrangement or
organization) of various elements on the picture plane, thus freeing painting
from its centuries-old burden of recapitulating the familiar. Call it mark-making
with abandon. But this is certainly not to equate abstraction with abandonment
of all traditional design principles
which could make abstract paintings compelling or edifying.
That said,
Christopher Triner draws well. The more recent (2013) abstract works here
(there are also older pieces on view) are highly intriguing compositions of
linear and shape elements that are drawn
into as well as floating on top of
brushy, amorphous fields of variably saturated color. In particular, three of
his oil paintings on canvas – Parapet, Cantilever,
and Modern Pilaster – are loosely
architectural in nature (as indicated by the titles).
Back in 2010, I
commented in a review of Triner’s work (http://artwach.blogspot.com/2010/10/slash-and-learn-painters-brush-with.html
) that his strongest painting evoked a musicality reminiscent of Romantic-era
symphonies. And in this show, I still sense a palpable lyricism in the
aforementioned paintings, though not so much of the symphonic sort.
Interestingly enough, while the title of the exhibit would seem to imply a kind
of deconstruction or “fracturing,” I find these newer works more akin to
structures (or musical compositions, if you will) in the process of coming
together in a spirit of frenetic joy.
These pieces
conjure for me the instrumental improvisations characteristic of Bebop or Free
jazz. Get playful. Think of Triner’s defined linear structures as percussive
rhythms simultaneously supporting and releasing his gestural shapes and
splashes of bright color like so many staccato accents or brassy solo passages.
All of the energetic configurations in these paintings (the “drawings”) unfold
not so much against the blended,
undulating color harmonies in the “background” as they emerge from it,
establishing a distinctly optimistic, upbeat mood.
Here, Kandinsky’s
call for poetry in abstract painting is well met.
PHOTOS: top - Modern
Pilaster; bottom- Parapet (left); Cantilever (right)
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