Showing at David Lusk Gallery is Dwayne Butcher’s exhibit “The
Genius Hasn’t Killed Me Yet.” Butcher, a self-described redneck,
rabble-rouser, car thief, and painter/curator/activist/blogger/editor,
covers a lot of ground in this multimedia exhibition. His rapid-fire,
unabashedly honest poetry, passionately opinionated Top 10 lists, video
syntheses of kitsch and fine art, and luminous paintings — as
shiny and slick as the paint jobs on cars he stole as a youth —
reveal a supercharged mind that moves in dozens of directions and an
artist who finds beauty, irony, and pleasure in nearly every
moment.
Dwayne Butcher’s She Woke Me Up To Say She Charged by the Hour
Among his videos is Truck Pool, showing the artist drinking
beer and smoking stogies while listening to classical music and
floating in a makeshift pool in the back of his pickup. Then there’s
his abstract painting She Woke Me Up To Say She Charged by the
Hour, a work with thick, light-blue acrylic dripping into pale
peach, like consciousness slowly moving into the light of dawn. Grids
of black ink marks look architectural, like long barracks and lean
skyscrapers. The dense black mesh also suggests window or door screens
through which we glimpse endless stories in the big city.
There are no ink marks, no lines of narrative in Butcher’s
Soothes the Palette, a seamless work in which lavender morphs
into an even paler peach. As always, you’ll find a touch of Butcher’s
trademark irony — his most ethereal work is painted on a hinged,
free-standing sandwich board instead of canvas.
Jana Joplin’s Elaborate
Linda Disney’s latest show, also at David Lusk, includes some of the
best works of the artist’s career. Her mastery of plein-air painting is
especially apparent in View From the Bridge. Disney nails the
scene of a river at sunset, not with the crisp-edged hues of
photo-realism or the blurred approximations of impressionism. Instead,
she records shadows within shadows to capture half-lights and afterglow
as a crimson, then mauve, then lavender sunset is reflected in the
slow-moving waters of a river and the foliage along the edge of its
banks.
Both Butcher’s and Disney’s shows are through May
30th
Perry Nicole’s current show, “The May Exhibition,” is a satisfying
mix of Linda Cordner’s lyrical floral abstractions, Ellen Fink’s
paintings of birds and butterflies, John Whipple’s strikingly original
mixed-media sculptures, and Lynn Whipple’s darkly funny combinations of
folk art, fairy tales, and photos of relatives several generations
removed.
Lynn Whipple’s Slightly Scary Sally
In the mixed-media painting Slightly Scary Sally, one of Lynn
Whipple’s ancestors looks haunted, hamstrung by rigid moral codes and
class distinctions. The outline of a fine gown is drawn in graphite
around Sally’s gray woolen skirt and high lace boots. Her hair is
pulled back into a tight bun. Dabs of white paint become a string of
pearls; polka dots on translucent insect wings sprout from Sally’s
back. Two polka dots turn Sally’s pupils into super-luminous, ghoulish
eyes. Faint lines of graphite extend from her head and mouth like
antennae, and her tongue coils, ready to snag the tiny gnat close to
her face or to reach deep into a flower. Behind Sally’s spartan facade,
we glimpse, perhaps, a woman driven to distraction because she never
got to taste the honey.
Through May 30th
View From the Bridge, by Linda Disney: on view at David Lusk Gallery through May 30th
One of the most evocative works in “Bloom,” Jana Joplin’s
current exhibition at Gallery 56, is the deep-purple, white-tipped
iris, titled Elaborate. Painted up-close and at an angle, at
first glance Elaborate looks like a full-figured, wasp-waisted
can-can dancer kicking her leg high in the air, revealing layers of
petticoats beneath her purple skirt. Set against an umber, almost
ebony, background this brilliant flower (or dancer) is a striking
metaphor for the fertile earth that nourishes, the brief moment of
glory, for both plants and animals, and then the letting go.
Through May 30th
