*I am rather confused as to whether we were supposed to write a separate response the Chelsea Galleries or not, so I figured I’d just write something short.*
There’s a beauty and a sickness I associate with certain rural areas, and both Dorn and Dorland captured this perfectly.
Kent Dorn and Kim Dorland had, along with similar sounding names, very similar subject matter and painting technique. Their choice to chronicle adolescent memories led to very personal work, and I liked that. Despite Dorland’s being Canadian, both galleries showcased work that focused very much on a working class backwoods childhood, which led to both shows being heavily tinged with a sense of Americana. They were not, however, cliché pastoral scenes but instead grittier, more realistic depictions of the environment in which the men grew up, and I enjoyed this.
What was also notable about these two shows were the artist’s heavy reliance on impasto painting. This layering of paint to create a sort of stucco effect, but usage to the extent that it was utilized in “New Material” and “Remains” is, as far as I know (which, admittedly, is not much), relatively uncommon.
I liked almost all of Dorland’s pieces. The scream-like portraits included may have been a bit much on their own but worked in the context of the show, adding a perceived sense of violence to the already dark mixture of moods brooding within the show.
What I enjoyed about Dorn’s work was that he seemed to utilize the concept of layering paint to actualize physical dimensions in a more prominent and thoughtful way than Dorland. Again, his portraits were my least favorite part of his exhibition because I thought many of them were overly chunky to the point where they were so distorted they began to lose their meaning. My favorites by Dorn were the ones in which he used a restrained amount of impasto technique and watercolor to produce a sense of near and far as well as convey the idea of fuzzy and fading memories.
Also in relation the gallery visit, but not to these artists:
I was personally a bit put off by CPLY’s aptly named ‘X-Rated’; I thought it felt like what may occur if Matisse were to have painted pornographic images. However, when seeing the cover art (now banned in most sales) for Kanye West’s new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy it immediately reminded me of the exhibit.
It goes to show that artistic eroticism is pervading the mainstream as well.
-Ali Simon-Fox
