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Malcolm Bucknall
can tell you how to annoy him. "One of the worst things is being asked,
'What is that supposed to mean?' " complains the 66-year-old artist.
"I think it's necessary to suspend disbelief. By doing so, you keep
all your options open."
And if you want to perplex him, ask Bucknall why he paints anthropomorphic
animals -- creatures like Victorian children with cats' heads, an
Edwardian dandy with a deer's head or a baby with a turtle's head.
"What surprises me is that people are surprised by it," he says. Bucknall
points out that anthropomorphism populates cartoons, comics, children's
stories, fairy tales and folklore. And he mentions the historical
precedent: Greek mythology has the Minotaur, the Furies and centaurs.
Ancient Egypt had the sphinxes and a pantheon of animal-headed gods.
"It's so . . . common," he says. "The anthropomorphic depiction of
animals is a much more direct way of dealing with human feelings rather
than dealing with a whole human being. Because human beings are so
many different things, they become inscrutable. But you give them
a dog's head or a cow's head and you've got this thing that fits together
and tells a story. Not many stories with many possibilities, but one
story."
Judging by appearances, Bucknall's life may not be common, but it's
not overly weird, either. One morning last week, he answers the door
of his newish house in the Shoal Creek neighborhood with his wife,
Carolyn, a retired UT librarian, and their granddaughter Holly. The
brown-haired Holly is sick and spending the day with her obviously
doting grandparents.
From the threshold of the Bucknall's spotlessly tidy home, there's
a perfect view of "Old Indian and White Poodle." The oil painting
of two seated figures is in the style of Rembrandt -- with a bizarre
twist. The female figure draped in ornate period dress has the head
of a white poodle. She looks kindly at the figure next to her, a Native
American man wrapped in a blanket, gently touching his shoulder. "Old
Indian and White Poodle" was used as the cover illustration of "Puss/Oh
the Guilt," a 1993 joint release by indie rock bands The Jesus Lizard
and Nirvana.
"When kids collecting signatures for GreenPeace, or whatever, come
to the door, they immediately recognize the painting," Bucknall says.
By appearances, the mild-mannered British-born Bucknall is an unlikely
indie rock cover artist. But "Old Indian and White Poodle" is just
one of three of his paintings that The Jesus Lizard, who are Chicago-based
but have Austin roots, have used for their CDs. "Allegory of Death"
decorated "Liar," and "Falling Dog" was used for "Down," which garnered
Bucknall a Best Artwork of 1994 award from the music magazine Alternative
Press.
In the 38 years that Bucknall has been a full-time professional artist,
he has received a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship, sold
his work to public collections and exhibited widely. Born in Twickenham,
UK, Bucknall landed in Austin in 1958, following his father who had
taken a position with UT's school of engineering. This was after Bucknall
had spent two years at Chelsea School of Art, after he had done his
mandatory military service (during which he was stationed in Cyprus)
and after studying art at the University of Viswa-Bhrati in India.
Bucknall finished his undergraduate degree in art at UT, then picked
up an MFA from the University of Washington.
Now, he has the first exhibit of his work in three years, which opened
last week at d berman Gallery.
Two days before the opening, he leads the way through his house and
back to the two-story garage, the first floor of which houses a white
Volvo station wagon. The second floor is Bucknall's light-filled studio.
He is in the midst of packing up 14 drawings and seven oil paintings,
which he will load into the Volvo and deliver to the gallery. At the
top of stairs are two sturdy liquor boxes, each of which hold seven
of Bucknall's small ink drawings, neatly framed and matted. Bucknall
has packed the pictures facing each other and, so the glass and frames
won't scratch, he has separated each pair with carefully cut rectangular
pieces of foam board.
In fact Bucknall's entire studio is tidy -- terribly, deeply tidy.
A cabinet holds jars of incredibly fine-bristle brushes. Books neatly
line a shelf in one corner. They are thick, hard-bound volumes of
catalogue raisonnés of Rembrandt, Ingres, Poussin and Titian. But
then there's also the "All Color Book of Insects," "The Pictorial
Encyclopedia of Dogs," "Splendors of the Universe" and "Victorian
Children." Boxes hold trimly organized files of pictures culled from
all manner of magazines and books.
"The way that I get ideas is to go through pictures and start putting
things together," he says. And those things might be an Ingres portrait
of an elegantly attired noblewoman and an Audubon portrait of an egret
and a photograph of a pointy-faced Afghan hound.
"I make pencil drawings, adjust images to the right scale and superimpose
them onto each other until I find something that gives me this feeling
-- almost a physical feeling -- and then I know I've come upon something."
Bucknall renders everything with an almost inconceivable precision.
If he's copying an image from a photograph, what he paints looks just
like a photograph. If he's copying a Rembrandt setting, the scene
he paints has the same quality and texture as one by Rembrandt.
Bucknall's new paintings signify a departure from his previous work.
For the past three years, Bucknall has been terribly fascinated by
outer space and the deep sea. His paintings at d berman chart a fantastical
cosmos populated by creatures that are part lizard, part fish or part
lizard, part armadillo. Or a Venus-like woman with a turtle head.
Fruits and vegetables swirl around like stars and planets. In "Oh,
This Wonderful World (Ugli Fruit)" a cherub of a baby crowned with
a flower garland rides an ugli fruit while peppers, brussels sprouts
and mushrooms float around.
"Alice Through the Hubble Space Telescope," offers Bucknall by way
of explanation.
But no, that's not an explanation.
Says Bucknall: "Mystery is my religion."
You may contact Jeanne Claire van Ryzin at jvanryzin@statesman.com
or 445-3699.
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