Sesow in Hurn Museum

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Local News Web posted Saturday, December 24, 2005

Face dances

A dozen portraits by contemporary folk artists showcased in "The Many Faces of Folk Art" at the Hurn Museum

Allison Hersh For the Savannah Morning News

SS click to view the Slideshow

In its latest exhibit, the Hurn Museum of Contemporary Folk Art has put the focus on faces.

This small show, titled "The Many Faces of Folk Art, showcases 12 portraits by a range of contemporary folk artists through the end of February. Co-curated by Michael and Valerie Sottile, the exhibit continues the museum's ongoing fascination with the underlying ‘connection between falk art and fine art, invoking

portraiture as one way of understanding that a connection

Stylistic elements which recall paintings by Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau and even Francis Bacon recur throughout "The Many Faces of Folk Art," demonstrating the degree to which contemporary folk artists have been inspired by art history. This exhibit suggests that the ald-fashioned nation of the naive, self-taught artist who creates inspired work in 2 history-free vacuum is nothing but 2 romanticized fantasy, as many of these twenty-first-century folk E-mail story artists draw freely, and often quite self-consciously, Print story, from earlier masters

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Slideshow! "Good oy, Bad Boy" ‘by Michael Banks Special to the

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“The new generation of folk artists is not doing Clementine Hunter stuff," said Michael Sottile, curator of the Hurn Museum of Contemporary Folk Art. "Their work has greater depth, more technique and more meaning,

‘The exhibit offers a relatively understated sampling of portraiture created between 1975 and 2005, with the majority of the work having been created in the last several years. From the Zen-like beauty of Carrie Knowles's golden-hued serigraph "Morning Tea" to the diorama jungle effect of Harriet McGee's "Eve in the Big Garden," the artists on display use a range of techniques to represent the human figure.

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Matt Sesow's "Father of the Bride" threatens to steal the show with its irrepressible expressionistic angst. This 2001 acrylic painting on cardboard is defined by the remarkable violence of its brush strokes, which recall the kinetic force of Jack the Ripper with their razor-sharp slashes and blade-like shredding effect. These kinetic linear forms combine to create 2 grotesque portrait of an imposing man in a blue

blazer and orange tie, dried white mounds of paint farming his monstrous teeth.

Sesow's composition is even more impressive with the knowledge that he had one hand amputated in a freak childhood accident. At the age of eight, this self-taught artist was struck by a landing airplane whose propeller severed his arm and resulted in the lass of his dominant hand,

Other highlights in "The Many Faces of Falk Art" include three portraits by revered Savannah folk artist Rudolph Bostic. "Green Lady," a 1975 portrait of 2 woman crafted from food coloring and enamel on cardboard, has a surprisinaly elegant effect with its thick brush strokes and dramatic use of contrast.

Alabama outsider artist Michael Banks's mixed media painting "Good Boy, Bad Boy" offers insight into his creative use of form and color to create offbeat portraits of wide-eyed figures. This portrait, which complements his retrospective which occupies the Hurn Museum's main galleries, focuses upon a swollen-faced, green-eyed figure with a suspended yellow halo dripping, like melted butter, above his head.

For each of the artists on display, the human face serves as a pliable canvas upon which they can freely experiment, projecting emotions and exploring the depth of the human condition. From self-conscious self-portraiture to African-inspired, mask-like faces, "The Many Faces of Folk Art” offers a tantalizing glimpse of 2 growing subgenre of folk art.

Museum director Valerie Sottile says that she is impressed by the sincerity and authenticity of the portraits on display. "This work comes from the soul," she said. "Folk art is really emerging into fine art.

IF YOU GO

What: "The Many Faces of Folk Art: Folk Art in Transition"

Where: Hurn Museum of Contemporary Folk Art, 1015 Whitaker St

When: through Feb. 28, 2006

Cost: Adults $4, Students $3

Christmas Day and New Year's Day

For more information: (912) 234-7322 or www.hurnmuseum.org

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Matt Sesow Regarded as an “outsider” artist, Matt Sesow’s imagery is derived from events in his life and the lives of others in various stages of trauma, hope, hopelessness and healing. Sesow was born in Omaha, Nebraska. At 8 years of age, he was struck by a landing airplane near his home and his arm was severed by the propeller. Though Matt’s arm was re-attached by surgeons, his dominant hand was amputated. Six years later, he traveled to Newcastle, England and participated in the Disabled Olympics on the United States team. Matt attended college in Oklahoma and received a scholarship from the Mensa Society. He achieved a B.S. degree in computer/software engineering. He began to make drawings in 1988 and began painting in oils in 1993. Matt has traveled the world and has painted in of the countries he has visited.

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IN ONE OF THE SMALL galleries reserved for intimate, temporary exhibi- tions at the Hurn Museum, there are cur rently showing twelve works by nine fantists under the ttle of Faces of Folk”

Ina variety of sizes, styles and media the viewer is confronted withthe theme of portraiture, The works have bean carefully Chosen trom emerging artists in the Musoum’s collection, and what intially stood out for me was the overall painterly ‘accomplishment, experimentation with ‘media and clearly modernist influences that were apparent, and that we generally ‘do not expect ftom artists labeled, “folk.”

For instance, Rose Walton's acrylic portrait of St. Lucy recalls the stylized {aces of early Modernism’s famous out- sider, Modigllant: oval, melancholy, elon- ‘gated faces, long necks, small mouths. land empty pupitiess eyes. This saint's ‘story Is that she removed her eyes and

presented them to an aggressive suitor ‘who wouldn't take “no" for an answer. In ‘Walton's complex vision, the two eye ‘Bupiis have been removed and yet seem to reappear on the chest. A strange dou- bing of eyes/breaststhet;geam to be a recurring theme in Walton's Work.

‘And something’ ot VaR"'GBGH"S Bor- traits comes to mind in tront of Dela ‘Wel’ pastel, "Yes, Mama. 'm Being a Good Gir" particularly inthe attention to face and patterned sweater and in the ‘tude drawing of the hands resting in the subject's lap.

‘A hint of De Kooning's series of ‘women from the 1940s is evident in the violent slashing and impasto of Matt Sesow’s “The Father of the Bride." Here the subject glares out atthe viewer through grinding teeth in a gashed mouth that extends beyond the contours of the face,

In fact, the painterly, expressionistic ‘gesture dominates this show. Iti there in the scrubbing paint application of Cher Shatter's mixed media, “Self Portrait (Looking into the Light)” and inthe tow disciplined, Chinese-ike brush strokes that make up Carrie Knowles, serigraph “Morning Tea’: itis there in the mass of ballpoint pen graffiti marks that cover the forms in Gabriel Schatfer's mixed media, three-headed portrait, “Man With Three: Souls", and in the multitude of fine brush strokes that bulld up Eric Legge's

‘inning “Portrait of a Friend” Again, in the looser brush strokes of Rudolf Bostik’s enamel and food Coloring portrait, “Green Lady”

‘There are, infact, only two works here that seem to display no discernible influences or interest in fck-oftho-wrist paint handling Michael Banks, “Good Boy, Bad Boy," a large, fat face with a halo and protruding tongue, and Harriet McGee's very strange shadow box, “Eve in the Big Garden”, in which the naked Eve, a bied inher hand ‘and accompanied by a tiger is par tially buried by a mass of carefully ‘cut out, three dimensional layers of paper grass and leaves.

Intiuences and painterly skis are not what one expects from folk antsts, usually thought of as Untaught in the ats and generally ‘uneducated. In the past, they were left alone with only thei internal Vision as inspiration, and they created artworks trom their special place “outside” the mainstream Culture, which dealt with the, human, Conaltion in vital and serious ways:

Early Modernism broke withe== the European Fine Art tradition by consciously borrowing from the aris of other cultures, from Asia

‘and from African tribal art and then from the marginal works of the rural poor and the institutionalize,

But influences abound now for the folk artist too, and are mostly unavoidable and always reciprocal. All visual information circulates frely, whether we want it or ‘ot, and is picked up and used by all antists, sometimes unconsciously.

| have googled all nine artists and with the exception of two, they appear on folk

art gallory websites All of them belong to two postwar generations. Half are now in ‘their ities, and half are in thei thirties, ‘They are all iterate, educated, and have been exposed to mass media - mag: azines, books, TV and fim. And since at least two of them have degrees in noreart

subjects, the folk artist criteria of “set taught” must here be merely defined as ‘ot having attended art school

In contrast to this story, there are works on display in another gallery at the Hur, by three classical American folk

‘Some work from

artist outsiders, Clamentine Hunter, born 1886; Sam Doyle, born 1906, and Howard Finster, born 1916, Each started painting In old age and worked in isolation, as if they were the only artists in the world,

At least in the paintings on view, they al paint by filing in thei figures with fat Color, a naive style,

have a controversial opinion that work done in secret, not originally Intended for exhibition of sale should probably remain that way. Looking at those works, one can't help feeling that something of their meaning has been destroyed by overexposure, publicity and market speculation.

Even before he died, Finster was referred to as “Folk art's first superstar” a <death-knoll if ever | heard one. AS Michel ‘Thévoz has written of outsider art, “It really seems asf, ke Orpheus, Western culture is doomed to destroy whatever is - - or rather whatever was - strange, merely by gazing ati”

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38 of Folk clockwise from upper let: Matt Sesow’s ‘Father of the Bide’ Rose Walton's ‘Sant Lucy’ Gabriol Shaffer's ‘Three Sous’ and mixed media by Cher Shatfr

If, in these times, the real outsider is normalized out of existence, perhaps itis Painting itself that is being marginalized, Looking at the folk art websites, i is incredible how much painting is being ‘done by those termed “folk artists, and dipping into the glossy art magazines, itis Interesting how. very litle painting is being done by those in the so-called Fine Art ‘category.

The mainstream of contemporary artis ‘now dominated by technological at that |s very expensive to produce. So perhaps those who continue to want to daub Canvas with colored mud need to be side- lined into the lesser market of folk art.»

The Hurn Museum is at 1015 Whitaker St. Cail them at 294-7322. Our resident art critic Bertha Husband is a native of Scotland who has studied art at ‘Oxford University and Ruskin School of Fine Art, She has an MFA from the School of the Art institute in Chicago