|
|
2006
Newspaper Article 2 Color illustrations. Lincoln's art scene
continues to benefit in April with a spring flourish of new exhibitions as
varied as any artist's palette.
The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery features emerging artist Mike Cloud's
first solo show of his paintings and collages, the Tugboat Gallery, an
alternative venue devoted to both established and emerging artists celebrates
its one-year anniversary with new work by young artists Shannon Bourne,
Dominique Ellis and Nolan Treadway and Joey Lynch, one of Tugboat's founders,
just opened a new series of prints at the Lux Center for the Arts. While fitting in April
that all three shows highlight the art and nurture the budding careers of
blossoming artists, it is also proper that another venue showcase the new
growth of an established artist whose own full-time career began 20 years
ago. Modern Arts Midwest at 800
P Street in the Haymarket District is currently showing "FOCI" the
recent paintings of Marjorie Mikasen until April 29, and MAM owner Larry
Roots says it is the right stuff at the right place in the right time frame. "Marjorie's work not
only represents our commitment to artists with a unique style and vision,
" Roots said, "it's fearless because she continues to explore
formal qualities which are so easily dismissed by postmodern critics and
historians. "Her approach to
painting is transcendent as it relates to math, science, music as well as
art. Her paintings reflect a
commonality that synthesizes the modern period. She proves that despite the declarations of postmodernism,
modern art is not dead. " Mikasen is an abstract
painter living in Lincoln who has exhibited nationally and internationally
since 1987. Recently, her work
was included in the Tweed Museum of Art's traveling exhibition,
"Contemporary Art and the Mathematical Instinct," and the Museum of
Nebraska Art's "RSVP/MONA" honoring significant artists in the
state. The MAM exhibit continues
her conceptual study of imagery and ideas in the scientific sphere but
Mikasen states that her paintings have an anthropomorphic quality as well. "The title of this
show, "FOCI" (the plural of focus) relates to the optical quality
of my geometric paintings," she said in an artist statement, "and
also to the subject matter I choose to focus on. I am interested in making paintings that have something
for both the eye and the mind. " And apparently something
for the spirit as well.
"FOCI" also applies to Mikasen's interest in "what it
means to have an intellect, instincts and a spirit, and how these oppositions
inherent in all of us come into balance. This is a problem for every individual. . . for human
society and human culture throughout history. " Roots says it is this
discerning quality of Mikasen's work that raises it above current trends
"which today is anything or everything. Her work sparks a discourse, a dialogue separate from the
status quo, a dialogue that should sustain itself 10 or 15 years before it
can be evaluated. Every time I
see her work it is fresh and renewed.
It's enduring." Of course, confronting
Mikasen's colorfully intense abstractions, a viewer is more concerned with
appreciation and analysis, and it is her adherence to an evolving singular
expression that provides one of the keys and clues for interpretation. Her work is challenging but viewer
friendly. It is neither evasive
nor patronizing. In an excellent 2005
interview in Geoform, an online art resource, Mikasen said, "My work
reflects a geometric approach based on nature. So much critical and historical attention has gone to the
abstract artists who have denied they are putting any meaning into their work
or working from any reference points.
Sort of like Frank Stella's "what you see is what you see. "
" Or worse, the ultimate
cop-out or condescension, "It means whatever you want it to mean"
or "everyone is entitled to their opinion," as if all opinions were
created equal let alone enlightened.
The truth is the viewer needs and appreciates the sort of prompts like
artist statements, didactic labels and gallery walks and talks an equally
discerning venue can provide. Mikasen's images are
created through traditional sketching and computer modeling. She says a computer drawing program is
an excellent tool to use "if you want to dig in and really manipulate
it." Once the image is
developed, including the color scheme, her method involves masking and
unmasking areas with tape.
"When the tape is removed you get a very straight, crisp, precise
edge. This technique seems to
suit itself well to producing spatial and optical effects." In "Ome," the
show's signature piece, this vertical acrylic painting does indeed provide a
multiple focus with overlapping and intermingling patterns of symmetrical and
asymmetrical balance. Hard-edged
red lines provide a formal structure to this mass (Ome's literal meaning)
while angular and oval figures in blue, greens, oranges, yellows, and white
give the work an organic feel. The painting resembles a
city map with its busy mix of grids, districts, multiculturalism and green
spaces. This is not surprising
as Mikasen has said that "my geometry comes out of growing up in
Chicago. I feel I internalized
the grid of that city." Three other pieces also
patterned in an urban motif are a trio of "Clinal Variations," 1,2,
and 4, whose horizontal or vertical stacking of bars could be girders at a
construction site or a view from atop the Sears Tower. Either way the resulting illusion is
one of many optical tricks Mikasen employs in what she describes as her
"push-pull" perspective on the spaces we occupy and navigate. The ultimate optical
effect is created in a series of paintings she calls stereopairs which
project in sets of two similar, side-by-side images an understanding of the
function of convergence and disparity in the vision process and the
realization that the eye focuses where lines of sight cross. This is cleverly
accomplished in the appropriately titled "Mystery," a stereopair
which locks in seemingly identical geometric figures within a grid of
angular, converging lines that appear to meet at the center. While trying to determine the
identity of the figure one realizes that the painting's most intriguing quality
is its optical illusion that makes the work seem narrower in the center than
at the edges. Stare long enough
and the painting will seem almost to fold in upon itself of its own accord. Less complicated but just
as intriguing is the melancholy "Noctis Labyrinthus" (Labyrinth of
the Night). This personal
favorite is filled with optical illusions and one possible literary allusion
to John Keats "Ode to a Nightengale." A geometric shape shifter of a bird fairly floats on a
gray background. There is the
hint of eye, ear, even beak in this winged creature whose harmony and
immortality is the envy of the poet. The two most sophisticated
pieces in the show art the ambitious "Action Potential" and
"The Aleph, I leave to various future times, but not to all, my garden
of forking paths." These
works are examples of Mikasen's ongoing series, Liminals, which she describes
as "visual explorations of where our location is within the changing
knowledge of science . . . all the knowledge that changes our world at an
ever increasing pace." Roots says that many of
Mikasen's paintings in this show are based upon mathematical equations and
scientific formulas, and while we may not be privy to them we can still enjoy
the rich and colorful imagery created from their inspiration. "Aleph" is the more formal
of th two as this garden of delights plants a pattern of optical illusions
within its organic foundation and earth tones. "Action
Potential," the most complex piece in this exhibit, appears to mix every
imaginable matrix within her repertoire. As busy as it is, its four distinctly different planes and
sets of matrices seem to merge via line and color motif. From its anthropomorphic roots to its
crystal and molecular structure to its sound waves it virtually synthesizes not
only its own varied energy but science, music, myth and art as well. "Action Potential" itself
is the true focal point of Mikasen's vital show in the modern idiom. |