Michael Wais Jr.
“Painting at The Hyde” - Opening Reception for Autumn Art Show at Grossmont College
Text Rights: Michael Wais October 4, 2011. All images are the copyright of the artists shown at the “Painting at The Hyde” event.
Some of the paintings from Grossmont College’s “Painting at The Hyde” reception
The October 3 Hyde Gallery reception at Grossmont College happens to be as much of a change of pace as the autumn season itself.
Daphne Hill’s creations are wonderful outlines of baroque-styled figures against glamorized background motifs of penicillin. In one other piece of art, an attractive woman who looks quite like a hula-girl or classic “Coca-Cola” pin-up stands flirtatiously and buoyantly against the tropical background of the title’s mentioned Weeping Willow Gonorrhea. Pieces of this nature succeed in making previously threatening or intimidating kinds of viruses endearing, trendy, and comfortable (like if the bio-horror films from film director David Cronenberg met the pop-art of Andy Warhol).
Tom Lazzarra has his own piece dealing with another kind of mutation- of the deliberate kind: In Untitled (#23) Lazzarra paints a man with a full-back tattoo leaning with one shoulder on a door-frame. Across from that man and in the distance sits a nude woman, in a dressing room or bedroom. She is on a counter lined with dolls and a female mannequin bust sits beside her. The nude sits in a lazy and unattractive pose, letting a fuller belly stick out as she is in the nude. This painting shows what “real” people are like in private in a way that is not morbid, not reactionary, and not regal. Instead, it is brilliant in posing people as they are when they don’t intend to be watched or looked at.
Lazzarra’s other piece (also Untitled) is a pop-art style quilt design made out of different iconic brand logos from the “Star Trek” television series to Marlboro cigarettes. The collection of memorabilia is a post-modern pastiche that playfully connects to create a quilt design of an attractive woman in a corset, at ease in her bed.
Bill Mosley’s works are about the connections and interconnections that make San Diego’s architecture what it is. Ironworker is a practical and vivid look at what makes the construction workers who build San Diego’s cityscape tick. It uses calm colors and shows an ironworker striking the material. The piece expresses the nature of San Diego’s building and rebuilding in colors that show clarity and calmness while expressing a tone of realism in a clear and specific way.
On the other hand, Anna Stump’s paintings are intimate and candid portraits of people at ease. Stump uses acrylics to express visuals like Monet had expressed by using thick and deep paints in Poppy Fields (except Stump lets the paint drip down the canvas like urban sweat on her subjects).
Ben Aubert uses abstraction like Stump’s, but with landscapes instead of people. In Moving Light the acrylics are dabbed and spread along like the city lights of Tijuana seen from afar.
At the other extreme, Jennifer Bennett uses acrylics to paint the desolate yellowness of the Nevada desert.
Michael Wheelden has also donated three pieces of art to the museum from the collection of Nancy Woods and Rick Ryderberg. Desert Lawn, Thrice Told Tales, and Possibilities (paintings by John Lee and Daniel Travert) are paintings of suburban landscapes similar to settings that might be seen driving through Palm Springs or Santa Fe. All of these pieces have been designed by arranging a number of panels together in such a way that the slightly raised indentations between each panel offer a three-dimensional effect. Stacking these panels in a symmetrical way while the boards are peeking outside of the canvas’s confines make these ordinary and mundane environments magically come alive.
The “Painting at The Hyde” exhibit runs at Grossmont College’s Hyde Art Gallery through October 27, 2011.
(Source: grossmont.edu)
