For
all the conceptual, video, film and performance-based art that nowadays
spills regularly out of university art schools, including the University
of Texas, it might be easy to overlook some of the very strong figurative
work that's percolated in the ivory tower too.
Ditto
with the self-involved navel-gazing that pervades the subject matter
of young art school art -- not everybody's doing it.
Certainly
not Zoe Charlton, Holly Fischer and Edward Monovich, who now share
an exhibit at D. Berman Gallery.
The
trio are all -- or in the case of Fischer will soon be -- products
of UT's graduate art program. And all demonstrate finesse with figuration
and smarts with handling politically charged material.
Charlton
has been impressing for years now with delicately rendered mixed-media
drawings that pack a punch in the way they tackle racial and gender
issues. Currently on the faculty of American University in Washington,
D.C., she shows -- lucky for us -- regularly in Austin. While Charlton
is still using the same combination of ink, pen and various paints
to portray with expressive strokes her singular stereotypical images
of black women and white men, much of her new work is large -- 5 feet
by 4 feet in some cases. That leaves the viewer no choice -- you must
confront Charlton's scenes, like the nude black woman in "Untitled
(Cape)" who has a cord leading her navel to a tiny sailing ship
that flies in the air like a kite. The woman is still harnessed by
history, in this case, by the specter of a slave ship.
Fischer
wrestles with the gender thing. But she does so in a covert manner,
seducing with the absolute beauty of her life-sized white ceramic
sculpture. Reclining in classic poses, Fischer's sculptures are voluptuous
female torsos. Only they are headless, armless, their lovely shapes
ending in flourishing folds and fluid lines. They can't be taken in
from just one angle -- they tease you around as you try to understand
where they start. They're uncommonly beautiful, to be sure. But they're
jarring in the way they have abstracted the female.
About
a year ago, Monovich, who now lives in the New York City area, stood
out in a group show at Arthouse with his pop-culture-inspired drawing
that questioned recent U.S. military interventions. Why? He's one
of the few young artists who can handle political material without
being didactic or simplistic.
Mixing
comic book-like figures, pop culture icons (Disney's Pinocchio, for
example) and precisely rendered images of toys or animals or tanks,
his mixed-media drawings -- he uses everything from correction fluid
to rubber stamps to dry transfer letters and tape -- all look like
busy collages of clip art. He fills every available space, often using
as a background the pixelated pattern of the brown or green camouflage
used by the U.S. military. The soldier with a monkey's head in "Flex
your Mosul" sports a tattoo that reads Haz Mat (the abbreviation
for "hazardous materials"). In "Friendly Fire,"
Pinocchio's nose, wrapped in yellow ribbon that reads "Friendly
Fire," grows longer as he receives a blood transfusion, the blood
bag hanging on a machine gun.
Monovich
certainly doesn't mince his opinions. And though his drawings are
fantastically complex, his message rings loud and clear.
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