Vacant

I read the other day about the death of an artist named Robert Olsen. To be honest, I'd never heard of him. He was a young (44) LA artist who painted scenes and objects of ordinary urban life -- bus stops, gas signs and pumps, dumpsters, bus shelters, and his latest, shadows of freeway overpasses. One reviewer described his work thus: "Unlike Hopper, he depicts the machinery of modern living without the men and women who are threaded through it."

no title, oil on canvas over panel, 13 3/8 x 21 1/2 inches, 2014

 no title, oil on panel, 9 x 16 inches, 2010

Station, gesso on canvas over panel, 11 x 26 inches, 2009

 no title, oil on panel, 9 x 16 inches, 2008

 no title, oil on panel, 9 x 16 inches, 2007

Like a visual Bukowski (sans the sex and anger), Olsen's images have a desolation, a bleakness, that resonates with the darker side of life. And his paintings are both painted at night and use night as a subject to emphasize the solitary, lonely energy of 3am on the streets. They are utterly compelling and seductive, using a relentless vision that simultaneously pits contemporary angst and anxiety against a comforting, almost peaceful, view of a familiar urban landscape.

Two obits from Art Forum here and here and one from the LA Times provide additional background about Robert Olsen's artistic practice and tributes to his spirit as an artist.

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The Conversation, oil on canvas, 50 x 70 inches, 1991

A rather sunnier version of Robert Olsen might be found in the work of artist John Register (1939-1996). Like Olsen, his vacant American landscapes are still and quiet, but filled in living California color with the haunting specter of unfulfilled dreams. Endless empty seats silently waiting and watching, as demure witnesses to our presence and, perhaps, our departure. Diners, laundry mats, lobbies, and literal waiting rooms present themselves with a bloated anticipation, like a breath taken and awaiting its release.

 Red Booths, silkscreen, 33 1/2 x 48 inches, 1986

 Waiting Room for the Beyond, silkscreen, 41 x 41 inches, 1988

 Venetian Light, silkscreen & lithograph, 50 x 42 inches, 1990

You are right if you are reminded of Hopper, but Register himself said, "Hopper paints someone else's isolation. In my pictures you're the isolated one." 1.

It seems not coincidental that both Olsen and Register painted in California....

“California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.” ~ Joan Didion

Wasteland Hotel, silkscreen, 42 1/2 x 56 1/2 inches, 1990

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But if these two artists depict a certain despair, I would posit that  Doug Young's empty rooms are similarly haunting, but they are not hollowed out psychological dramas. Young's images navigate our dreams and aspirations for space travel, musical talent, American heroes, or the bright side of luck. His vacant scenes are actually unflinching snapshots of the complexity of hope. 

Mission Control, reverse painting on glass, automotive paint, 49 x 49 inches, 2011 

Air Force One, reverse painting on glass, automotive paint, 49 x 49 inches, 2014

Price is Right, reverse painting on glass, automotive paint, 49 x 49 inches, 2013  

Music Room, reverse painting on glass, automotive paint, 49 x 49 inches, 2012

“I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
~ Joan Didion

1. http://www.oocities.org/soho/cafe/5618/atartists1.html

Die Like You Really Mean It

Doug Young - Untitled - 2011

Die Like You Really Mean It is a group exhibition at the Allegra LaViolla Gallery that celebrates painting as a healthy, living, and variegated mode of art making in New York. Each work selected emphasizes artistic passion and registers as a highly charged expression of the individual artist.  In contrast to the intentionally ironic, these paintings are sincere and, at times, viscerally rendered.

I interviewed Doug Young, one of twenty-one artists featured in the exhibition, about art-making and his new body of work. His two included pieces  -- Untitled (seen above) and Hallway -- are from a series of reverse paintings on glass rendered with automotive paints and ensconced in monumental, graphite-finished wooden frames. These works are confrontational as paintings, objects, and images. The paint is direct and assertive, yet whimsical and quirky. The imagery included in the exhibition is evocative of childhood wonder and curiosity, yet haunting and resonant of the out-of-body.

Die Like You Really Mean It is on view October 26 through December 03, 2011. Opening reception: October 26, 6-9pm.

Hallway - 2010

Wanderlust: So you have a new body of work…reverse paintings on glass. They differ substantially from the sculptural work you’ve done in the past. Tell me how these paintings came into being and a bit about how they’re made.

Doug Young: Well, I started out as a painter, but I stopped making paintings for about 5 years. I was throwing around ideas about how to get back into oil on canvas, but I didn’t want to go back to exactly that routine. Every time I started a new sculpture, I asked myself “how would this look from a 2-d perspective?” I had an idea for a sculpture that sat around in my head for a couple of years about capturing the vantage point from the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. In the meantime, I was at a flea market and I came across an old painting on glass…an Asian landscape embellished with gold leaf and reflective paints. Something clicked. I said, this is how I’m going to get back to making 2-dimensional works.

I thought that the image from inside the Millennium Falcon would be the perfect starter painting because it references glass, thereby making sense conceptually and visually. It is also an iconic image of Han Solo going into hyperspace and, as with my past work, using imagery of childhood wonders is compelling.

But now I had to figure out how to do this. I tested out how to adhere paint to glass and through these experiments I came across automotive paint, which has a lustrous surface and would further establish the attitude of the image.

Diamond - 2011

W: So, what’s the process of how these paintings are made?

DY: The bare bones is that I simply apply paint to the reverse side of glass by any means necessary. It’s strange how each image provides unique paths into its creation. None of the paintings are created in exactly the same way, which is one of the things I was dreading might happen. One can be a servant to a technique and that is not the case here. I keep finding new problems to solve with each new painting.

Painting in process

W: Why glass and what are the means? Paintbrush?

DY: The paint is both sprayed on and cut away with the help of various tools. And the reverse application on glass allows for a unique surface to come into play, the breadth of which is endless. The application of paint is born through a constructive strategy rather than a romantic brush stroke. It is in this construction that I draw parallels to making sculpture. In fact, as objects they relate to my interest in the crafting of folk art. Some of my past sculptures have dealt with popular traditions such as rug hooking and tramp art.

Diamond, Untitled, Helmet - all 2011

W: Can you talk a bit about the two sizes of your paintings? Some are large, monumental works in massive frames, and others are smaller and more intimate.

DY: It depends on the image whether it gets a large or small format. Some images work better on the scale of a personal experience and not shared. However, I wanted to establish a sense of neutrality through the continuous use of the square format, in order to maintain an awareness of the image as an object and not as a “painting.”

W: I love how many of these works function as windows rather than frames. It seems intentional…with the Milennium Falcon, the motorcycle helmet, and the death chamber images in particular. Is this important to you when selecting an image?

DY: Not necessarily. I am less focused on being a voyeur, which a window alludes to, and more focused on capturing fundamentals of human spirit. For example, in Untitled (death chamber) you can view it as a window into an execution room, which it is, but I chose that vantage point less for its naturalistic attributes and more for capturing the ethereal characteristics of dread and the fear of dying. And it just so happens that the automotive paint facilitates this quite nicely, allowing the viewer to experience a transition from the corporeal to the out-of-body.

W: There are graphic qualities and pop-like elements to your work that remind me a bit of Ed Ruscha? Do you see a connection with him, or any other artist?

DY: With regards with Ed Ruscha I see less of a direct linear connection and more of how we both have a dialogue with the surface of the “canvas.” However, the shared romantic notion with Hollywood movie making and the drama of cinema is a direct path for stimulating new ideas for work, and a rich, compelling and engaging subject.

HAL - 2010

W: In Richard Hamilton’s obituary from the New York Times. I came across a quote of his from 1961 that made me think of your work. “If the artist is not to lose much of his ancient purpose, he may have to plunder the popular arts to recover the imagery which is his rightful inheritance.” Do you agree?

DY: Yes, I agree. I feel some images have timeless attributes despite their current connotations. These images, although they come from popular culture, can elicit a stirring, personal experience. And who is to say, on a poetic level, who owns such images?

Working Together

Doug Young - Disney, 2010
49" x 49" (framed dims) 49" x 49" (framed dims)

Doug Young is showing his latest work at Sugar (gallery) in Bushwick April 30 - June 11, 2011.

On view are a series of reverse paintings on glass, rendered with automotive paints and ensconced in monumental, graphite-finished wooden frames. The result confronts you unabashedly. These fictions of place and fantasies of youth are a marvel and a wonderment. Captivating in their graphic qualities, starkly and consciously superficial, they attract and yet repel. You're not quite able to get your footing nor fully "know" what you're looking at....or through. Quirky and irregular, these works suggest how striving for perfection falls short and the fallibility of humans endures.

Don't miss Doug's radio interview for Breakthrough Radio.

These images mark a departure for Doug, for he has primarily worked as a sculptor for the last decade. Doug Young has exhibited widely in New York and Chicago. In 2001 he was awarded the Guinness Book World Record for the longest nonstop banjo performance in history—24 hours total.

Sugar
449 Troutman St. #3-5, third fl.
Brooklyn (Bushwick), NY
Friday through Sunday noon to six by appointment only
Opening Reception: Saturday April 30, 6-9pm