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Bruno Surdo:
Ann Nathan Gallery Experts in psychology tell us we all have alter egos. In an extrovertive sense, we are molded into different personas as we move among different social circles: our demeanor and responses alter. And as introvert, each discovers complex personalities within oneself. Neuroscience now reveals that, unawares, a subjective self is a 'confederation of mental systems' united by a conscious monitor. It is a wisdom artists have long intuited. It is the very life-breath of art. Chicago artist, Bruno Surdo, was born one of twins. For an already insightful talent, that is a further prompt. Bruno Surdo's "Dualities of Life," a showing of richly painted oils on canvas is at the Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, until March 17, 2001. This art holds a mirror to individual identity and reveals the masks of life. It investigates a sense of self within -- individual identity -- and selves as public personae. Surdo's paintings are striking in conception and technique. This artist first studied at the Liceo Artistico di Bari, Italy; went on to the American Academy of Art in Chicago; then to Atelier Lack, Minneapolis, Minnesota; and ultimately entered the Studio Cecil-Graves in Florence, Italy. He has absorbed and extended the technique and vocabulary of past centuries of fine art. But, if art were solely a matter of faultless technique, or highly developed skill in illusionism, those could acquired, taught; and art of high quality would abound. And we would be unimpressed, without pleasure, and without delight. These paintings leave enduring impressions, give deep pleasure, and true delight. Here, a consummate expression unites with distinctly individual content. Dual Psyche (22"x15") is the first canvas as one enters the gallery. At first it seems a twinning: a doubling of a single portrait. The painting's subtleties betray it as a duality: two differences masquerading as a singular. Because they are nearly identical, many viewers seek out differences. The artist counts on this response, and it is not unfounded. Chicago art historian, James Elkins, noted: "I am not secure looking at twins until I can fix on a difference, no matter how trivial it might be: it's as if my mind refuses to engage, refuses to start building any understanding of the two individuals, until I can present it with something that makes sense." Surdo's art draws scrutiny. One regards the form at the left. Only her right hand is visible, pulling the robe closer about her, as if defensive, withdrawing from rejection. Certainly the form at right gestures in dismissal. The expression of the leftmost figure, however, approaches pleasure, even ecstasy. (There is an air of Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa about it. The lips insinuate some great release.) The form at right expresses in its finer points a sense of distress, a heavy burdening of emotion. Open light visibly traces the folds of her robes, while her alter ego at left recedes in darker shadow. And, as distinctly two as their bodies are, their hair flows each into each. The effect is that the foremost female is emerging from her relieved, receding twin: a new persona in a grimace of birth who with effort draws away. The painting's three focal points --the two faces and the central hand below -- draw visual interest away from its center point, to the edges of the canvas. The subtleties of tone and dramatic use of light and shadow in this work, achieved by orchestrating underlying layers of paint and thinned subsequent glazings, all make that duality possible. Dual Psyche is a gratifying work.
Who Am I? offers an additional elaboration on identity. The female nude poses as six alter egos; each the same woman, but each acting independently. One of the first details which caught the eye of many viewers at the opening is the object which the foremost figure holds: a Necker cube. This is famous in psychology and perceptual research -- a flat schematic cube which alternately reverses perceived orientation upon prolonged viewing. This is clue for ambiguity. In order to make sense of things, the eye must have a set of reference points. Where these are ambivalent, the mind examines possibilities and sets its own. And they needn't always be the same. Humans do have an inherent need for duality: things are 'Either... or....' Such paintings by Bruno Surdo may reveal that it is as true for personality as it is for perception. And it carries into social context. This artist plays with that as well, both on canvas and in the content of his work. Who Am I? also displays Surdo's insights toward a counterpoint of plausible impossibilities. Past masters of compositional detail have exploited that, but rarely in such a tour de force. Deliberate and yet harmonized, the figures of Who Am I? are actors of free will. A viewer sooner or later discerns that even the apparent reflections enjoy a willful autonomy: they could not possibly be reflections as the artist offers them in paint. And Surdo's compositional counterpoint is subtle in its inversions. The two foremost figures at center do not mirror each other's pose; they rotate it. Were it not for the Necker cube held by the one, they could act as consecutive instants of a single walk. Where the artist appeals to a mirrored duality, it is often to covertly heighten their separateness, even within a close and sympathetic bond. The Secrets of Castor and Pollux (29"x34") does precisely that. Surdo has noted that this canvas arose from an esoteric secret shared with his own twin. This painting does begin with a mirrored pose, but that plays with a wit of the eye -- one twin is the teller, the other listens. While duality here arises from the flesh, each individual is distinguished by acts in a social context. And such autonomous acts needn't be in harmony. Me First (40"x33") explores the discords of duality. Although the mind logically recognizes two distinct persons, the eye is led by the artist's composition to insist on conjoined twins, parting at the waist. In an organization of human form worthy of a Paul Cadmus (who also drew from past art legacies), Surdo marshalls each gesture and telling detail to first evoke an equation of visual object -- jackets, neckbands, hairstyles -- and then refutes this through color difference and strategic lighting. True to a visual signature used by long-honored tradition, Bruno Surdo has included himself in a present work: So, what do YOU think? (48"x68"). The artist appears, in red cap and dark glasses, at farthest left, a self-effacing witness to the painting's content. This is in fact an icon of his core intent, namely, that the art is an enduring dialogue. It is created by the individual, but then enters a world of others. In the end, it is each viewer who adds to it in the form of response and interpretation, who modifies the work for himself. As with the Necker cube, the eye of the artist seeks out references beyond itself. Each painting is much like the central model of So, what do YOU think?: observed, examined, commented upon and at times, ignored by those who, like the figure at foremost right, are absorbed in other interests and do not see. Or do not wish to see.
One feature which stands out in Surdo's group paintings, whether set in an urban alley, a Chicago "El" traincar, or in open space, is that often those in casual groups make little eye contact. In discussing Flora of the Subway (81"x64":2000), his depiction of an evening ride on CTA rapid transit, the artist noted the eerie atmosphere of the experience has always attracted him. A quiet, neutral truce of personalities is in effect. When a friend suggested that he paint it, he placed her at right in the painting. The work has the feel of an urban Edward Hopper, a George Tooker. The CTA poster map is the one detail which specifies what otherwise is a universal moment. The artist has noted, however, that "Everybody is someone": each figure is painted from a specific model. Often the artist goes about and recruits those he finds as an interesting type. And, as with past masters, Bruno Surdo contemporizes (and Americanizes) the untimely and enduring. While very contemporary in specifics, Surdo's paintings are founded in human nature, and that nature has changed little in forty thousand years. In general sensibility, The Guides (72"x55") concentrates pursuits and personalities found on the streets of any large city in the world. In any time. One finds the poor fool at right; the solicitous, motherly feminine at lower left; and before her, the child already noticing the enticements of the greater world. In this painting, romantic sensuality -- a young woman, half-draped and bearing roses -- appears before the creative, self-absorbed dreamer and musician; and even farther in the background, a viewer spies a scholarly cleric: the distant call to learning and to spirit. The child must pass the fool, and an unrestrained youth bearing cash, to arrive at enlightenment. And Man's city surrounds them all. If this is allegory, each visitor reads it in his own idiom. Among the works at Ann Nathan Gallery, The Re-birth of Venus (104"x142") stands as central. And here again, although the artist has captured very contemporary human types, and with wit and conviction allegorized them to Classical mythologies, "Everybody is someone." The putto at upper image, suspended by straps and bearing yellow flowers, is the artist's son who laughingly quipped at the show's opening: "Daddy, I'm tired of hanging." A second son appears in the lower right of canvas center as a somewhat disaffected Cupid with bow and quiver. A theme basic to this artist is the unifying image threaded through the ensemble: the re-birth of Venus is being videorecorded from the left, and simultaneously viewed on an airport monitor at upper right. In this painting, Surdo presents a theater of life. Bacchus is reincarnated as a tattooed drunkard of the streets. A paid woman, clad in slip, bra and feather boa, cavorts with two tipsy middle-aged men, one of who wields a wine bottle. A runner sports the winged shoes of Mercury (but, the artist states, his jersey number, "24," was merely what the model wore to the studio). The Re-birth of Venus is a visual feast and, much as in the work of Paul Cadmus, it is a multi-layered precis of modern society. Each visitor carries away his added interpretation. It endures in the impressions it inspires in viewers, just as it is prepared for permanence. The artist selects quality materials to insure both permanence and quality for hue and tone. Bruno Surdo's "Dualities of Life" will be on display at the Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago, until March 17, 2001. The gallery has published a catalogue for this showing. Excellently illustrated in color, and with an essay by Kimberley Baker, it is well worth the $10.00. --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. Editorial Note: Books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews may be purchased through this site's Barnes & Noble link. Bruno Surdo is featured in Art Scene, Chicago 2000 (Crow Woods Publishing: 2000): Surdo's The Re-birth of Venus illustrates www.artscope.net's review of that book (Oct. 2000). The Necker cube, and the many roles of perception in art, is treated by Donald D. Hoffman in Visual Intelligence (W.W. Norton & Comp.: 1998). James Elkins of the Art Institute of Chicago in his The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing (Routledge: 1996) discusses the perception of face, with reference to twins. |
