Writing

KENT DORN "REMAINS"

NY Arts Magazine Summer 2011 - Reviewed

“When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at a certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful ... ”

-Edmund Burke, “Of the Sublime” A Philosophical Enquiry”

At his first solo show in New York at Freight and Volume, Kent Dorn’s paintings sit somewhere between horror and beauty. His canvases are a personal approximation of the sublime, painting portraits of drifters and outsiders interpreted as lepers or apparitions. These displaced souls are sometimes undressing, doing mysterious things in a somber landscape littered by detritus. In Dorn’s show, “Remains,” old cars and mushrooms make an appearance, as well as some human sculls, graffiti, a cabin, dead birds, and a folk guitarist. Mostly there are young people in the woods getting lost or intoxicated, or both. This show is somewhere between a suburban nightmare and trip in the woods. There is a sense of searching here for some revelatory experience, however I am left with more a feeling of nostalgia.

There are hallucinatory mounds of paint piled on top of nicely drawn but loose backgrounds with some collaged photographic elements of eyes and faces. Colored pushpins add a spatial element. It is difficult for me to describe them as paintings, they function more as sculptural reliefs. It seems that they sometimes mistakenly drift into diorama territory when there is so much disconnect from surface of canvas to piles of paint. There is an obvious connection between Dorn and other contemporary painters, like Kim Dorland and Allison Schulnik. The use of massive amounts of paint is an effective device, although I am sometimes a little suspicious of this. This is undoubtedly where Dorn’s paintings shine through, giving them an edge.

In Down By The River, there is a river scene with two handfuls of figures. Some of these figures are bathing naked, others seem to just be backpacking through. There is a vague wash of memory here. In Van/Hideaway 2, a burned-out old van that could have belonged to retired kidnappers sits on cinderblocks awaiting its next victims. The paintings of mushrooms held my attention the longest because they function best as painting, and this is where I can see the process of paint taking hold. Throughout the entire show the color is muted, using a tonal palette with the occasional walloping of yellow for the sun or the moon. In Through The Woods 1, there is an effect of looking through the canopy of treetops at the sun, with beams of light carrying through the composition.

Overall there are more questions here, for the viewer, than there are answers. This is a good thing to see at a first solo show. I wish there was more inconsistency, however. The oppositional elements, like thick paint on washy thin surface tend to even each other out. Regardless, Dorn has a real command of the psychological, with his haunting portraits of vagrants and outsiders drifting in and out a landscape that somehow captures the moment of contemporary youth. Perhaps it’s all the flannel. I look forward to seeing how he progresses as a painter and I hope he can maintain that tenuous distance in which we still have delight when looking at something horrendous.

James Gillispie

 

Killer Little Paintings

NY Arts Magazine Summer 2010 - Reviewed

London-based painter Ben Pritchard's newest exhibition, Days, in Long Island City could easily be overlooked, considering the madness of New York Gallery Week, which took place in early May. While most of the focus was on Chelsea and the Lower East Side, I found myself on a Friday at Pritchard's opening in Long Island City. It is a small and compact exhibit, but I found it to be very serious. It speaks of Pritchard's larger ambitions as a painter and proves art that can only be made in New York is sometimes made better somewhere else.

In a small gallery space underneath the 7 train, with the occasional roar of trains going by overhead, I took a long look at these paintings. I found variation and invention using anthropomorphic brush strokes that were ethical and not overly fussed with. I found clarity and a substantive insistence to discover new abstract forms. They avoid the dogmatic stigma that some abstract painters here in New York fall victim to. Individually the paintings remain autonomous, but through each one there is a different purpose. There is an occasional glimpse of everyday life for Pritchard, especially in the painting, Barrel, which has a very English pasture color palette. The awkward, heavy form sitting in the middle of this canvas is pockmarked by singular dabs of paint and heavy brush strokes. In the painting Terrain, there is a transformation of an earthy ochre color into what appears to be copper. This masterfully painted canvas sits beautifully on its own.

Throughout the entire exhibit, there is a wandering theme, which might be misinterpreted as unfocused. Collectively their greatest strength is an underlying investigation and intuitive search for something unknown and vulnerable. There is a playfulness that reminds me of Chris Martin. However, unlike Martin, Pritchard values a more traditional materiality in oil paint. This separates Pritchard in a distinctive way from other contemporary abstract painters. There is no appropriation of the painterly brush stroke here; it exists as a sincere testament of discovery.

In my favorite painting, Stewart, Pritchard covers up the whole surface with rough almost tar-like, black brush strokes; what remains are tortilla chip-sized shapes that are burgeoning with pentimenti. It seems like there is an eruption underneath the canvas. This painting is quite simple, but there is a profound substance that lurks.

These paintings are not beautiful per say, nor ugly. These paintings are functional. In comparison with painter Bill Jensen, Pritchard makes Jensen's work feel aesthetic. There is a brute honesty that I can trust. It occurs to me that Pritchard has sabotaged all other professional options. These paintings are his last bastion. Again, in the painting, Stewart, there is great risk in covering up the whole surface with tar-like paint. This kind of usurpation does not feel contrived, though there is an ethical stance here. And then there is humor; they are more amused with themselves.

The strongest paintings are a combination of sabotage and discovery. Their ham-fisted paint application is dutiful; it likens sometimes to Guston. However, these paintings feel fresh. I had always wanted to know what a Milton Resnick looked like right after it had just dried. Now with Pritchard's paintings I also get an idea of what they smelled like too. Intoxicating!

James Gillispie