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Paint me a Story
Image Courtesy of Green Hill Center
Jack Ketner's Testimony: The Holy Spirit Moves In is among the works in the exhibition "Allegorical Realism."
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Published: October 26, 2008
GREENSBORO - In the South we are enamored with storytelling, as is evident by the region's strong literary tradition. Not surprisingly, visual artists in the South are often drawn to narrative themes. Works by four such artists are on view at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art through next Sunday in "Allegorical Realism," an exhibition highlighting realistic imagery that invites symbolic readings.
Each painting in the show tells a story, at least in part. Some of the stories are specific and relatively easy to follow; others are fragmentary and enigmatic. Working in their own styles, these artists all portray human characters engaged in various, symbolically charged activities.
Virginia Derryberry references familiar mythological narratives in the most engaging of her ambitiously scaled, nearly photo
realistic oil paintings of young men and women in pastoral or forest settings. One of them depicts Greek mythology's Daedalus on the scene during his son Icarus' tragically doomed attempt to fly. Another interprets Daphne's transformation into a laurel tree, while a dual portrait of a young hippie couple (The Game of Love) overtly alludes to the temptation story from Genesis.
Particularly appropriate to the season is Derryberry's Death and the Maiden/Dia de los Muertes ("Day of the Dead"), in which a gorgeous, raven-haired woman elegantly dressed in green and gold embraces a human skeleton in a hellishly red landscape.
Disarray and disaster are hallmarks of Jack Ketner's carefully stylized paintings, which suggest Thomas Hart Benton on psychedelic mushrooms. The imagery is detailed and readily identifiable, bordering on cartoonish, but virtually every object and material surface depicted in these paintings -- including cut flowers, bedclothes, tablecloths, human skin and rotting lumber -- appears to be palpably alive, roiling and writhing as if animated by mysterious forces.
The relationship between spiritual ecstasy and psychological disorder is the subject of Testimony: The Holy Spirit Moves In, one of Ketner's most effective paintings. In a conspicuously untidy room that suggests a Southern-gothic bachelor pad, a zoned-out-looking man sits in a chair holding a wilting magnolia blossom in one hand and a flaming match in the other, apparently oblivious to his burning fingers. The ghostly pale form of a pretty young woman who hovers just behind him -- presumably the "holy spirit" mentioned in the title -- suggests the imaginary Stepford wife of this deranged man's dreams, evidently busying herself with the formidable job of cleaning his wreck of a house.
Working in a more sparely honed style than the show's other artists, Mark Kingsley has created a series of poetically resonant scenes populated by groups of often faceless figures. These characters are busy with various tasks or gather to watch others. The settings often appear to be shrouded in fog or mist, enhancing their mystery. Panoramic formats lend a cinematic quality to several that suggest isolated frames from a movie storyboard.
In Kingsley's Brigade, soldiers, or maybe disaster-relief workers, are loosely aligned on a tarmac as they collaborate to load or unload a helicopter whose tail stretches across the top of the composition. In Dig Deep and Excavation Kingsley depicts groups of figures gazing into pits in the earth. The two silhouetted figures in his Purification witness the final stages of a catastrophic fire, and the men in his Angelus appear to miraculously stand on the surface of a tranquil blue lake whose depth they test with long poles.
Henryk Fantazos employs a heavily worked, precisionist approach in his fantastical paintings that feature incongruous hybrid figures and illogically juxtaposed imagery. Fantazos is more extensively represented than the other artists, but most of his 36 paintings in the show have been previously exhibited in the Triad in recent years. His most impressive efforts are two new paintings of multiple figures engaged in performance activities in spectacular outdoor settings -- a verdant southeastern coastal marsh (Nenufarium) and a topiary garden (Hortus Mirabilis).
The term "allegorical realism" can be likewise applied to at least some of Kiki Smith's exhibition "Touch of the Eye/Look of the Hand" at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. On view through Dec. 7, this small show consists of prints that Smith, a widely known New York artist, has made since the mid-1980s.
Smith used a variety of printmaking mediums to create these images of human figures -- including a number of self-portraits -- and other mammals, as well as a few birds and fish. Among the show's most overtly allegorical pieces are the etching Pool of Tears and the lithograph Born. The girl who swims alongside four benign-looking rats the same size as herself in Pool of Tears looks a lot like Lewis Carroll's depictions of the young protagonist in Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland. The woman and young girl embracing as they miraculously emerge from the body of a black wolf in Born both wear red headgear that associates them with Little Red Riding Hood.
Another highlight is My Blue Lake, a photogravure lithograph in which front, side and rear views of Smith's head and shoulders are combined to create a single, seamless, 360-degree self-portrait that suggests flayed, flattened and eerily blue-tinted skin.
■ "Allegorical Realism" is on view through Nov. 2 at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, 200 N. Davie Street in the Greensboro Cultural Center; for more information phone 336-333-7460. Two of the represented artists, Jack Ketner and Mark Kingsley, will discuss their work at the Green Hill Center from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Kiki Smith's exhibition "Touch of the Eye/Look of the Hand" is on view through Dec. 7 at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, on the UNC Greensboro campus at Spring Garden and Tate streets; for more information phone 336-334-5770.
"Allegorical Realism" is on view through Nov. 2 at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, 200 N. Davie Street in the Greensboro Cultural Center; for more information phone 336-333-7460. Two of the represented artists, Jack Ketner and Mark Kingsley,
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