Two recent exhibitions have featured work by four artists each of whom is intent on finding his or her own unique mode of expression. To varying degrees, in different ways, all defy conventional assumptions about art and its often-supposed necessary requisite, beauty.
ŒŒIn The Flesh,¹¹ an exhibition of ŒŒexpressive nudes¹¹ by Mardy Lemmons and photographs by Kevyn Bullard at Yellow City Art, certainly raises questions about the relevance of beauty to the subject.
Lemmons¹ feminine imagery wouldn¹t sell many automobiles or cigarettes. But that¹s not their purpose.
Lemmons isn¹t selling anything, except the paintings, which are canvas and paint, or paper and crayon or graphite, or in one significant instance an assembled mix of wire and wood with painted canvas. That one (none are titled) bears a slight resemblance in its layout to flayed beef-carcass paintings.
So then, the exhibit is about pain and distress? Not really; some of the paintings may suggest that, but others especially the drawings are quite objective studies of form and texture.
Texture is certainly a keynote of Bullard¹s photographs also dealing with the nude. Some of his figures have texturally crusted flesh. Other images have aspects of hide-and-seek concealment, with shrouds and veils overlying or surrounding the figures.
Perhaps for both artists it¹s a matter of emphasizing factors of uncertainty, mystery and risk in regard to the subject. Wondering how women might feel about the exhibit, I asked some present at the opening. ŒŒDepressing,¹¹ an older viewer thought. ŒŒQuite beautiful,¹¹ responded another who was younger. Ah well, who am I to dispute the truth in the eye of the beholder?
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