Robert Dale Anderson & Sydney Yeager Exhibit  

By Kenneth Hale, Department of Art and Art History, College of Fine Arts
University of Texas in Austin

To be published in Voice of Art Magazine
January, 2002

A review...

 
 


Saturation. The exhibit of drawings by Robert Dale Anderson and paintings by Sydney Yeager are pure saturation. The combined effect of the installation is one of sensory overload in the best sense of the phrase. The sheer brilliance of the color and texture in Yeager's large oils on canvas are juxtaposed by the intense intimacy and detail of Anderson's graphite drawings. I came away from the installation feeling as if I had been in a pinball machine. Nothing stops moving. You bounce from intense vibrating color fields to soft graphite grays that seduce you and then attack your psychic equilibrium and back across the room to another color field. Each artist is very selective in giving the viewer moments to pause.  Yeager does it with color; Anderson does it with the depiction of light. 

Yeager has come into her own style of applying paint. Earlier paintings, to my eye, which included references to recognizable objects, were not as successful as these canvases. In those paintings, great effort was taken to build up a textural surface rich in color. Then, as a final gesture, the recognizable objects were painted. The result was often a thinness that cancelled out the overall impact. A thinness, which placed into question the importance of the objects or that of the thick textures. However, in the new paintings Yeager never lets up. The visual volume (if you will excuse the metaphor) is intense and loud. The gesture is incased in the color. The differences in the paintings are one of visual vibration. Asymmetric Disturbance is a relatively calm picture compared to Degree of Constraint. Yeager constructs the paintings by building up rhythmic overlays of paint. The color palate is restrained and initially suggests a monochromatic theme. Yet the paintings are full of contrast. The initial viewing of the paintings gives one the sense of an overallness that is somewhat agitated. On closer inspection one experiences the complexity of paint application, color and compositional systems. In Degree of Constraint, the Baroque-like gestural form that is repeated is achieved by the contrasting of several brush strokes of varying colors. The beauty is in the formulaic system of consistency from layer to layer over the entire surface. The symmetry is always in danger of falling apart. This creates a tension that keeps the paintings from becoming mere decorative pictures. They are pictures that are demanding of attention; they do not sit and behave in a genteel manner. They are paintings whose vitality and energy will stand the test of time. 

Robert Dale Anderson's drawings are a very interesting juxtaposition to Yeager's paintings. Whereas Yeager's paintings are large in size (48 inches plus) Anderson's drawings are large in scale and small in size (7 inches to 13 inches). Both Out There and Left Standing are drawings that depict landscape vistas. Anderson's work is often associated with the famous 15th century Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch and the 16th century Dutch Bruegel family of painters. In my opinion the associations are more like Bosch meets Ensor meets Jan Vermeer. Anderson's images often evoke a nightmarish dream-like state. They are of places that often feel familiar but have never been seen before. They are possibly referential to specific works of part but their origin is not readily obvious, nor does it need to be.  In Anderson's most recent works, the illusion of light emanating from a specific source and falling on objects adds a magical twist to the themes. Earlier works tended to be more frontal and to close the viewer off as if in front of a wall. These newer drawings use light to maneuver the viewer in and out of the compositions, creating a sense of space in a large scale. Like Bosch, Anderson seduces the viewer to investigate closely the world created by the artist. Bosch uses brilliant colors and a sense of familiar landscape compositions to lure the viewer into his moralistic and apocalyptic paintings. Once the viewer is drawn in, he is trapped by the otherworldliness of the imagery. Anderson's drawings project a soft gray light that is soothing and inviting. Once drawn in, the viewer is taken into the artist's world of morphed plants, animals, humans, interiors, and landscapes. In this world, the objects have an appearance of being in a state of decay. But it is a decay that is treated with a gentleness and delicacy. The soft range of grays, created by the graphite, has taken the edginess off of the works (as compared to earlier works). The result is a more contemplative picture that lingers in the viewer’s mind. This may be the result of a more contemplative and mature artist. 

Individually, each artist has produced a body of work that would stand alone as significant solo exhibitions. It is impressive to see that the majority of the art exhibited was produced in the last twelve months. Both artists are familiar names on the Texas art scene and I am sure that we will be hearing more about both of them.  If you miss the exhibition it would be worth the effort to visit the d berman gallery and view what pieces by each of these artists David Berman might have on hand. The gallery is fast becoming the finest contemporary art gallery in central Texas.

11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday 
d berman gallery, 1701 Guadalupe St.
477-8877
www.dbermangallery.com 


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