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Andrew S. Conklin

June 25 - July 25, 2004

Lora D. Art Gallery
435 East Illinois Street, Suite 150
Chicago, IL 60611
Tel: 312-245-9005
Hours: Tue-Fri 10a-5p, Sat 12p-5p,
Mon by appointment
http://www.loradartgallery.com

The Renaissance, the 'rebirth', coupled a new dipping into the reservoir of the myths and legends of Classical antiquity with a newly-awakened study of humanity as the proper study of man. The period which followed, later termed the Baroque, added to post-Renaissance Classicism a new realism. The works of Andrew S. Conklin, on exhibition at Lora D. Gallery through July 25, 2004, draw on such sensibilities. Infused with reference to Greek mythology, Conklin's work hearkens to the emotive realism of 16th-century Baroque artist Caravaggio. The artist brings Caravaggio's idiom into the present day, capturing essences of human interaction, while at the same time presenting a graceful, sumptuous physical world. These nine works provide a lyrical entwining of meaningful looks, gestures, costume and setting -- the lively intrigue of human interaction, with deeper reference to its Classical antecedents.

Conklin paints a sensual physical world: ripe fruits, figs, pomegranates, the delectation of fine, clean cloth in gay summer colors. As with the Dutch masters, an influence the artist also admits, the opulence of color and texture is balanced with a clean crispness of line. Oyster Bar (1998: oil on linen: 40"x50") presents four figures in an open-air setting, resembling the back corner of some provincial Tuscan restaurant. The man presents a lemon, preparing to squeeze it into the oyster-on-the-half-shell waiting in the hand of the woman in the red dress. Fresh oysters signal an expensive, epicurean pleasure, their reputation as aphrodisiac carrying hints of other appetites as well. But the male figure is focused elsewhere, absorbed in the taste of the wine at his lips; and it is to the viewer that the woman in the red dress addresses her gaze. In the background a second young woman focuses on the fingering of her guitar; in the foreground a third, a server by her uniform, reaches for another bottle from the well-supplied rack, to ensure the wine will keep on flowing for all. Though self-contained in their individual pleasures the composition ensures one sees every figure accordingly, leading the eye from the man in the white shirt to the woman in red, whose legs feed the line of visual movement into the waitress, up around through the musician, and back through the white shirt. The setting, and the artist's juxtaposition of gesture and absorption, awakens a social curiosity as to who these four are, and what their tale may be. But in Oyster Bar, narrative itself is subordinate to the proffering of delectable sensations: the tang of lemon, the velvety bouquet of red wine, the sound of soft music, and the suggestion of other pleasures implied by the warm sensuality of the woman in the red dress, whose open gaze, both self-assured and inviting, draws one in to join the table.

The artist's inspiration draws on Caravaggio's earlier and more playful secular subjects, such as The Cardsharps ("I Bari") (c. 1594-95; now known only from a copy) and The Fortune-Teller ("La Buona Ventura") (c. 1594), where the focus of interest is in everyday human interaction as implicit in look and gesture, posture and stance, commingled with subordinate clues of props and clothing. From all of these we weave story; and the liveliness of these works is that the tales are open-ended, left to our own speculation to complete them. In Gourmet Garage (1997: oil on linen: 40"x32"), Conklin presents a narrative moment of woman and man, facing one another against a background that only minimally hints at setting. With a full-length apron of dazzling white and a ceramic platter of fruit balanced on his hip, 'he' appears to be a waiter in an upscale restaurant. His body language sets him as firmly planted, immoveable, blocking her way. His face has a stern, peremptory air; but as 'she' raises one hand to the sunglasses tucked atop her head, she seems to be unafraid, even secretly amused by the confrontation. Their bodies face one another with a palpable energy, closer than usual for casual social interaction.

One looks for more clues to the transaction between them... And there is one, or at least, a further allusion to what the tale of these two may be. Partially concealed in the male figure's right hand is a small red fruit. The segments and seeds of its cut-open section identify it as a pomegranate. Persephone, daughter of the goddess of summer and of agricultural growth, was abducted by Hades, lord of the underworld, to be his wife; Hermes was sent to fetch her, and Hades knew he must obey; but made her eat a pomegranate seed, knowing that if he did so she would be compelled to return to him for half the year. With this reference, the corn in the woman's string bag, and the burgeoning leaves of the plant behind her acquire new significance of sunlight and summer growth. A shaft of sunlight illuminates her side of the canvas; a long shadow falls across the background on his, dropping that portion into deep darkness. The narrative acquires a new level of possibility: a look at man and woman as Persephone and Hades, light summer and dark netherworld, male and female and the contrasts between them.

Classicist Edith Hamilton noted how the Greek gods were "gods-become-human", how Greek civilization was the first to envision gods with human characteristics. Not Assyrian deities, cruel and remote; nor yet Eqyptian gods, aloof, part-cat or part-hawk. The gods of Greek mythology were in man's image, and though divine, and dangerous, were even subject to all-too-human foibles. Bringing these references into his art, Conklin weaves into his work elements of narrative that reveal elements of our contemporary humanness as unchanged, not merely back to Caravaggio's time, but far further back than that. Apollo and Artemis (1997: oil on linen: 36"x46") presents a different pairing of male and female. This time, the artist leads the other way: the Classical reference first, with its overt mention in the work's title. Apollo was Greek god of light, driving the Chariot of the Sun daily across its round. Artemis (Diana in the Roman pantheon) was the Huntress, and demanded chastity from her followers both male and female. They were brother and sister, both children of Zeus. In Apollo and Artemis Conklin's two subjects stand in well as god and goddess. The prideful arrogance of the male figure in his sun-bright golden vest befit a solar deity. The female's relaxed, yet confident no-nonsense attitude are appropriate to the Huntress, whose chastity lies in an utter lack of concern for her nudity. The businesslike way they look one another in the eye signals a special relationship between this duo -- intimate, yet nonsexual -- and the attention is sustained less by Artemis' nude body than by the pleasures of the complex contrasts and juxtapositions throughout the work: her confidence and his arrogance, her bare flesh and his silken clothing, their poses, half-complementary, half-reversed.

But this Classical subject has its roots firmly in the modern world. Apollo's hair is drawn back in a ponytail, long the hallmark of a 'creative', and the rag in his right hand balances a brush in the left, poised to daub blue paint on a work-in-progress. A Greek god -- painting? Artemis grasps a palette, sits on her castoff robe, garment of one who must easily slip out of it for posing. They could just as easily be artist and model, 'Apollo' with the temperamental attitude associated with the creative artist, 'Artemis' his posing subject, matter-of-fact, relaxed, and 'chaste' in a nudity of purely practical bent. One can see them as human; one can see them as representations of the human-foibled, Greek divine. Both interpretations are a delight.

These are delicately staged pictures with the appearance of candid intimacy, and like the best theatre, we accept the image as natural, and that these 'stories' are real. The five revellers of Black and White Venetian Ball (oil on linen: 36"x54") flow from left to right, a graceful frieze, measured as a dance and eloquent as a musical phrase. There is considerable visual appeal here, not least in the superb counterpoint of black and white clothing which forms the main colors of the composition and the highlights of red mask, red wine, red hearts on the playing cards. But the pivotal point of the composition is the meaningful glance exchanged by the man in white and the young woman in the maid's costume. The grotesque party-mask conceals his face; through the eyeholes can one see only the direction of his glance, bent intently on hers, the slight wrinkles of concentration around each eye. She pauses in her pouring of the deep red wine. The true nature of the transmission is unknown. The dark gray-marled setting implies backstage, some staging area for players or servants; the cards suggest 'chance'; the wine suggests festivity; the masks and costumes lend a cloak-and-dagger mystery to it all, intensified by that central, meaningful glance. What do these two know that the others do not? Or do all five share the secret implied by the glance of the two? As in all Conklin's work, the details are lovingly painted -- the flower in the buttonhole is a miniature still life on its own; the tiny lace of the chiffon apron, and the pearlescence of the white satin shirt, all reveal the artist's facility with superb rendering. The costumes, and the intent, could be a setting anywhere within the past two centuries. This is 'mystery', in the modern whodunit sense, and in a way that captures the word's more archaic meanings, from initiation to ecstatic rites. Play-acting itself derived from such religious rituals; masks and costume had their origin in representing deities or arcane figures. Black and White Venetian Ball is a scene at once contemporary, elegant, intriguing... and timeless.

From his willingness to explore the inspiration of the masters, Conklin draws an art that is a significant pleasure. Art for centuries was a transmission of technique from master to apprentice. It was only in the mid 20th-century that commercialism, cynicism, and the laissez-faire of the 60s reversed the flow, scorning tradition and setting in its place the cult of the cutting edge. Yet to think of a traditional apprenticeship as mere copying is inaccurate. Fifteenth-century master craftsman, Cennino Cennini noted that to grasp the master's style was necessary -- but that evolution from it was inevitable:

Having first practiced drawing for a while as I have taught you above, that is, on a little panel, take pains and pleasure in consistently copying the best things which you can find done by the hands of great masters. And if you are in a place where many good masters have been, so much the better for you. But I give you this advice: take care to select the best one every time, and the one who has the greatest reputation. And, as you go on from day to day, it will be against nature if you do not get some grasp of his style and of his spirit. ...Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good...

"It cannot help being good." This work is proof of that. Though it work shares inspiration and affinity with Caravaggio, and with the Dutch masters, it is an evolution of both into the modern world, and uniquely the artist's own.

Inspired by the works of Caravaggio, Conklin brings a Baroque Italian sensibility into the modern world. Nine paintings in oil by Andrew S. Conklin will be at Lora D. Gallery through July 25, 2004. These bright and lively works, classically skilled and Classical in theme, are worth a special trip.

--Katherine Rook Lieber

Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.

Editorial Note: Andrew Conklin's work also received mention in ArtScope.net's review of The Fine Arts Building Open Studios (http://www.artscope.net/VAREVIEWS/fabopen0604.shtml) (June 2004), and Art Scene Chicago 2000 (http://www.artscope.net/VAREVIEWS/FineArtsBldg0201-I.shtml, (February 2001). Cennino Cennini is quoted from The Craftsman's Handbook (Il Libro Dell' Arte), trans. Daniel V. Thompson (Dover Publications: 1978). Edith Hamilton is quoted from Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Warner Books: 1999). The Craftsman's Handbook, Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, and other books mentioned in ArtScope.net reviews, are often in print and may be purchased through this site's Amazon.com link.