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fairy tales: paintings by
A. Bernardo C. Marigmen III
Hi Ricky's 2nd Floor Gallery In the South of France several inns have excellent art collections. These represent the dinner tabs of several now famous painters who visited or settled there. In recent years, restaurants and coffeehouses have become increasingly important for viewing fine art. And the exhibitions change at regular intervals. In Chicago, Art retains a strong association with dining. Hi Ricky's 2nd floor gallery is currently featuring the paintings of Bernardo Marigmen in a showing entitled "fairy tales," though March Sixteenth. I have seen a large selection of Marigmen's work previously. In his past work, the painter has explored and assimilated the great proliferation of art experimentation which flowered during the turn of the last century -- Fauvism, Orphism, De Stijl, the numerous abstractionisms -- and in these latest paintings he displays a colorful and well-composed individual style that is none of the above. The work currently up at Hi Ricky's 2nd floor is characterized by clean and vibrant color and free, almost liquid forms, and dynamic lines. Although there is often the sense of a Marc Chagall or Georges Rouault in many, the paintings harken toward the effect of batik. Marigmen has taken Georges Braque's maxim, "The painter thinks in forms and colors," to heart.
One of the ironies in the subsequent development of the modern art movements has been that, exalted rationalizations and attendant theories aside, much of it when viewed without its guardian philosophers is fundamentally decorative. ("One 'Jackson Pollock' to match the Italian marble , to go, please!") Marigmen is unseduced by the academic crowd and while obviously taking pleasure in his media and his expression, he applies them to interpret motifs and tales that prompt his imagination. This painter, like the fabled Scheherazade, not only presents an alluring form, but performs from a store of tales, some invented, and others chanced upon or garnered from recollections. Many of the paintings literally re-collect or re-invent themes which have caught the artist's fancy. "The Quarrel (a love story)" (January 1999), a mixed media on canvas, measures 32"x57" and is representative of the work on display. Marigmen has stated that he often begins a painting on the spur of an intriguing title, without following the full tale, or because of an exotic name; or sometimes he is prompted by an episode he has observed. Scheherazade contrived a new tale each night to stay her execution by the Sultan, Schahriah, and each night left the conclusion for the next morning. After a thousand and one Arabian Nights, she was unconditionally granted to live. "The Quarrel" invites the viewer to reach his own conclusion. Curiously, the dominant embrace comes from a cloying, apparently feminine figure. The blue form which resists seems more an irritated male. It is color which clarifies the forms, and the bright reds, often associated with both love and with aggression, which frame the duet. Much like the Fauvists and early Cubists, Marigmen liberates color from any natural associations and employs it as a forming element, for both simple delineation and for emotional resonance. But the work is more akin to Vorticism than the early 'pure' Cubism; Marigmen's works capture motion in forms and linework, and these latter rely upon a repetoire of curves and liquid shapes to build out his subjects. "Cupid" (1999) is imbued with some of the industrious mischievousness, and perhaps even malice, which earlier the Victorians were so pleased to edit out. If "Cupid" is an instigator of love, then "Quarrel (a love story) may well reflect his handiwork. Marigmen's brush hints at perceptive ambiguity as well as a playful spirit. While Marigmen's painterly technique may be eye-catching, his personal vision and thus the paintings' content lift it out of the decorative in which so much of post-WWII modernism actually ended. Marigmen is among those current artists who may signal a fresh start which might or could have been expected prior to New York City's postwar reduction of modernism to raw abstractionalization and hyperbolic showmanship.
A third example of the work in this showing is "Mother and Child" (1999). Here the palette is darker and the color scheme more fractional; one is uncertain as to whether this is properly an impassioned interpretation of a maternal bond, or perhaps a concurrent memory of the childbirth which engendered it. The painting itself has a stained glass quality to the execution and finish. It is a work of motion and mood. Two other paintings in the full showing are particularly of interest, and the techniques employed in their making depart from the others. They seem to be earlier representatives of the painter's exploration of technique and expression; they are "Candy Factory" and "The Dream of Demetrious." Both are more abstracted than the later paintings, and "The Dream of Demetrious," in particular, shows a more subdued, even earthy palette in his Rayonistic parcellings of space and color. These paintings at Hi Ricky's 2nd floor can be seen on weekdays from 1PM to 5 PM until the Sixteenth of March. Casey Hoog Straten, the proprietor, has noted that on March 26th and 27th there will be a showing, entitled "Poetics," of additional artists with Bernardo Marigmen at the night spot. The opening on March 26th will last from 6 - 11 PM and then continue in the lower level. Information is available by phoning Hi Ricky at 312/ 491-9100. --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. |
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