Let’s Be Candid
By Tom Wachunas
EXHIBIT: Caught Off Guard: A Candid View / works
from the Canton Artists League, THROUGH SEPTEMBER 17, 2017 / at Massillon
Museum Studio M, 121 Lincoln Way East, downtown Massillon, Ohio
Over the past
decade or so, prior to every occasion of viewing a Canton Artists League (CAL)
group exhibit, I engage in a sort of preparatory mental ritual, a meditation.
I’ve adopted this practice with the full expectation of encountering an uneven
mélange of works ranging from the innocuous and insipid to the truly excellent.
“Calm down, breathe, and don’t be an irascible critic,” I tell myself. My
meditation usually concludes with a mantra, sung to the tune of Whistle While You Work: “Don’t be a
snooty fart, just open up your heart…”
I still often remind
myself that amateurism should never automatically imply artistic mediocrity. After all, amateurs are simply
individuals who love doing what they do. And in the end, what artist isn’t, first and foremost – regardless
of “professional” standing - an
amateur? That said, CAL is a particularly egalitarian
fellowship of amateurs. As such, it’s not so unreasonable to expect some less-than-remarkable
art in its group shows. Yet for all of CAL’s persistence in presenting the
harmless visual rhetoric of the hackneyed and ordinary – so much costume
jewelry, if you will - there are always precious stones to be found.
One such gem in this
exhibit is “Emily”, a colored pencil
portrait by Sharon Frank Mazgaj. Beyond the Mazgaj magic of bedazzling
technical bravura, the portrait is an astonishing embodiment of gentle
sensuality exuding a graceful, contemplative spirit.
A subtle sensuality is also at work in
Cynthia Capestrain’s softly rendered oil painting, “The Kiss.” Call it a G-Rated appropriation of August Rodin’s 1886 marble sculpture of the same name. Capestrain gives
us innocence with just a touch of impending adventure.
An odd but
refreshing kind of paint-by-number sensibility is evident in how Kevin Walton
has constructed some of the nuances of shape and shadow in his oil painting,
“Calling the Shots.” The family playing croquet on a thick green lawn is
generously bathed in luscious, dappled sunlight. Particularly intriguing is how
those perfectly light blue splotches of the sky are sitting on top of, not
peeking from behind, the tree foliage.
Considering Frank
Dale’s history of impeccable works in the tradition of the Flemish masters, his
entry here has a surprisingly loose, unfinished look. Still, his “Hapless Ring
Bearer” manages to effectively capture an endearingly awkward moment in the
otherwise upright pomp of a wedding procession.
Anna Rather’s
marvelous abstract acrylic “Diary Portrait 38” seethes and writhes with all the
primal intensity of a mystical, tribal dance. There’s an uncanny sensation of a
figure being simultaneously swallowed up by, and leaping out of, a flurry of
interwoven angular shapes.
Isabel Zaldivar’s
“A Jug Falling Off at the Bottom of the Pond” is a tantalizing piscatorial
playground rendered in sparkling, sumptuously liquid colors. It also poses
something of a humorous conundrum: How exactly does a fishbowl “fall off” the
bottom of a pond, and where exactly does it go? I guess it must look something
like this…
The delicate
serenity of an exquisite floral expanse in Claudia Mullane’s acrylic painting,
“Wait. What?”, seems to be shattered when a cartoonish bunny pops into view. Despite
this Disneyesque incongruity, this stylistic non-sequitur, the painting left me
smiling. And wondering…was Mullane whistling while she worked?
PHOTOS, from top: Emily (photo from artist’s web site), by
Sharon Frank Mazgaj / The Kiss, by
Cynthia Capestrain / Calling the Shots, by
Kevin Walton / Hapless Ring Bearer, by
Frank Dale / Diary Portrait 38, by
Anna Rather / A Jug Falling Off at the Bottom
of the Pond, by Isabel Zaldivar / Wait.
What? by Claudia Mullane
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