2254
(0 votes, average 0 out of 5)
Written by Debra Brehmer, Contributing writer
Jan 27, 2011
“Masked” by Stacey Steinberg is on display at Elaine Erickson Gallery. – Photo: Courtesy
Even in the 1600s, when Rembrandt repeatedly returned to the self-portrait, there was a knowingness to his approach. He dressed in costumes and assumed personas, all in the guise of varying selves. He somehow knew the impossibility of rendering anything that felt like a singular “self” long before theorists started talking about contingency.
Centuries later, the photographer Cindy Sherman enhanced this act of dress-up to address how our self-perceptions are encrusted with layers of rubbish from the cultural marketing and packaging of desire. Sherman embedded herself in cinematic, contrived scenarios. They looked made up yet resonated with a kind of truth: Society, advertising and popular culture shape who we think we are.
Elaine Erickson Gallery in the Third Ward’s Marshall Building, 207 E. Buffalo St., has assembled about 30 artists’ self-portraits to open a discussion about the eternal question – “Can a painting present a glimmer of our elusive psychological human condition?” The show remains on view through Feb. 19.
It is a random group of work, crisscrossing time and styles, held loosely together by the fact that Elaine Erickson represents or has shown all of the artists. This lack of context generates a sense of freshness and vibrancy as wildly divergent self-portraits bounce off each other. Like strangers on a bus, Schomer Lichtner sits near Waldek Dynerman. Katie Musolff is upwind from fellow MIAD grad Steve Lubahn. The beauties and the beasts form sympathetic unions under the banner of self-examination.
A 1955 self-portrait by Joseph Friebert rests on an easel on a table, slightly outside the fray of work on the walls. Friebert commands a stern dispensation toward the craft of painting as it emerged in the pages of history. Of German-Jewish ancestry, he was 47 years old at the time of the portrait and quite possibly near the top of his career, which started after he had worked as a pharmacist. His self-portrait carries more German expressionist influence than the abstract expressionism that would have been in the air in 1955.
The scrappy face of this painting, with its dark eye sockets, feels both private and public. Most of the other artists in this show painted self-portraits with full awareness of an audience. But Friebert’s portrait doesn’t quite carry that hey-look-at-me quality. There’s an earnest grit to it. He seems to use the self-portrait as a place for greater risk-taking and baths the face in a gooey yellow light that feels carelessly evocative.
Like Rembrandt, Katie Musolff uses the self-portrait as a calling card for her portrait painting practice. Delicate gray and white watercolor studies reveal a confidence with rendering and a commitment to painting from life. We know she’s staring into a mirror as she negotiates her own facial topography. It gives these studies a sense of immediacy that cannot be obtained when painting from photographs. The hesitant touch of the watercolor media suits her youthfulness. It also suggests the fluidity of a passing glance or a moment held against the cyclone of time.
Waldek Dynerman, who teaches at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, takes the serial approach to suggest multiple selves in various states of concealment. A counter-force to Musolff’s sweetness, this series of lithographs of faces worked into mixed media carries the sense of discord seen in Dynerman’s broader art practice. Obfuscation versus exposure may be the underlying choreographic principle of our lives.
Milwaukee’s foremost cow and ballerina painter, Schomer Lichtner seems to smirk down on all these hardworking artists with a sumi ink profile, a la Picasso. A few nicely dashed lines designate his 1970s mustachioed persona. Next to him are four abstract panels by Allison B. Cooke meant to suggest internal moods stimulated by far away places.
So many faces and so many styles. In the end, this show is a family gathering of the artists whom Elaine Erickson champions, a nice glimpse of the breadth of this long-established gallerist’s interests.
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.
