{"id":1094,"date":"2009-09-21T10:38:44","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T17:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/09\/at_ambach_rice_seattles_gang_o\/"},"modified":"2009-09-21T10:38:44","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T17:38:44","slug":"at_ambach_rice_seattles_gang_o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/09\/at_ambach_rice_seattles_gang_o.html","title":{"rendered":"At Ambach & Rice: Seattle’s Gang of Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hiking along the Nooksack River in the Cascade Range around Mount Baker, Claude Zervas<\/a> began to focus on campsites filled with burnt evidence of previous habitation.<\/p>\n

One he carried home in his truck, rocks and all. Besides the usual shotgun shells, it contained the charred remains of an upholstered chair. Who burns a chair in a forest? Somebody too drunk to forage, too wet to plow. <\/p>\n

Most of the camps Zervas saw were well made, dug deep and surrounded by rocks, but scattered like chickenpox scars on a lovely face, their careful construction could suggest that human damage can be contained in a pit, and that scars don’t affect the whole. <\/p>\n

Claude Zervas, Black Hole<\/i>, 2009<\/p>\n

\"claudezervasblhole.jpg\"<\/span>What is constructed, found and constructed again is the theme of From Whence The Rainbow Came<\/i> at Ambach & Rice<\/a>, featuring four of the Northwest’s top artists: Zervas, Joseph Park<\/a>, Dan Webb<\/a> and Jeffry Mitchell<\/a>. It’s the best group show in a Seattle gallery in years, proposed and shaped by the artists themselves.
 <\/p>\n


\nZervas is an urban man whose heart is in what’s left of Northwest wilds.<\/p>\n

Log<\/i> and Beam<\/i>, 2009. Made of paper, it wears the bark of a tree like a ball and chain, the real dragging down the illusion of the faked.
\"claudezervaslog.jpg\"<\/span>
Veneer Sculpture<\/i>, 2009<\/p>\n

\"claudezervasveneer.jpg\"<\/span>
Leo Saul Berk<\/a> should have been included in From Whence The Rainbow Came<\/i>, not just because the group is really a gang of five but because Berk’s elaborations are important to the theme.<\/p>\n

Leo Saul Berk, Ribbon<\/i>, a peeled tree from 2001:<\/p>\n

\"leosaulberkribbon.jpg\"<\/span>Zervas’ landscapes have roots in the land, but Park’s come from bad painting bins at second-hand stores.<\/p>\n

Joseph Park, eye of the tiger<\/i>, oil\/panel, 20 x 16 inches<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"joeparktigress.jpg\"<\/span>Plenty of artists root through these bins, but Park’s engagements are always transformative. In eye of the tiger<\/i>,
\nhe sanded down heavy brush strokes and painted them over, giving his
\nsurfaces a mute sheen. He stuck with the original’s overheated green
\nbut added a half-halo of cracked color shards as a gaudy grace note.<\/p>\n

Joseph Park, duck duck<\/i>, 2009 oil\/oil board mounted to panel, 6 x 8 inches.<\/p>\n

\"joeparkducks.jpg\"<\/span>Park also offers a few paintings that do not derive from amateurs, such as the futurists<\/i>, 2009, oil\/panel, 24 x 30 inches. A John Singer Sargent family portrait gets Park’s version of futurist treatment. <\/p>\n

\"joeparkfuturists.jpg\"<\/span>I’d like to see Park’s new work in an exhibit with mid-career Kenneth Callahan<\/a> as well as choice samples of white writing from Mark Tobey<\/a> and Morris Graves<\/a>, with Susan Skilling<\/a>, Michael Knutson<\/a> and Joseph Goldberg<\/a>.
\njoining Park in the contemporary moment. White writing was the
\nNorthwest’s version of Futurism. Futurism lives, but so does the
\nNorthwest School.<\/p>\n

And so does Picasso. <\/p>\n

Joseph Park, picasso and bull<\/i>, 2009, oil\/panel, 36 x 24 inches.<\/p>\n

\"joeparkpicasso.jpg\"<\/span>Park painted Picasso drawing on glass, which Picasso liked to do to amaze the multitude, example here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In
\nthe early 20th-century battle between Duchamp and Picasso, Duchamp
\nrepresented mind, and Picasso mind in matter. For a time, Duchamp
\nhanded Picasso his hat. By the 1970s, Duchamp dominated art discourse,
\nand Picasso’s name rarely came up.<\/p>\n

What was true in the 1970s isn’t necessarily true now. Starting with artists such as Charles LeDray<\/a>, whose roots are in the Northwest, makers are back in a big way. <\/p>\n

Dan Webb, Fortress<\/i>, carved cedar, 44 x 48 x 29<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\"danwebbfortress.jpg\"<\/span>Two
\nsmall boys crawl into a fort that collapsed into a confessional. Like
\nmany childhood memories, the event is irretrievable. We become who we
\nare based on who we were, which is lost to us. What we have is a
\nconstructed narrative, which is why Tom Robbins likes to say it’s never
\ntoo late to have a happy childhood.<\/p>\n

Given a chance to roam
\nthrough museums, kids frequently stop at the Armour.Webb made his suit
\nof Armour in rawhide. It’s a giant chew toy, but it’s also a kind of
\nskin. Nobody could say this figure wears his nerves on the outside of
\nhis body.<\/p>\n

Dan Webb, Skin<\/i>, 2009, rawhide, 72 x 34 x 22.<\/p>\n

\"danwebbknight.jpg\"<\/span>Back to Picasso. Do you recognize this figure?<\/p>\n

\"jeffrypicassowhite.jpg\"<\/span>It’s Jeffry Mitchell’s tribute to the Spanish master, and it tops Mitchell’s partially painted sculpture titled White Weeds<\/i>, 2009, made of wood, paper, plaster, string, porcelain, light bulbs, Plexiglas, gouache, pencil and epoxy enamel. <\/p>\n

\"jeffrymitchellwhite.jpg\"<\/span>Detail:<\/p>\n

\"jeffrywhitedetail.jpg\"<\/span>Detail:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\"jeffrywhitedetail3.jpg\"<\/span><\/div>\n
“Write
\nabout your ancestors,” Theodore Roethke told a class of aspiring poets.
\nA student asked if Roethke meant ancestors or influences. “Just answer
\nthe question,” he said.<\/p>\n

White Weeds<\/i> is Mitchell’s answer.
\nBoth fluid and blunt, it’s Mitchell’s version of Picasso drawing on
\nglass as a means of sharing what he knows. There are tributes to
\nPicasso of course, but also to Giacomo Balla’s egg holder, to the idea
\nof whiteness as a whale (white whale, white elephant), to the white
\nfence Tom Sawyer tricked his friends into painting  and to valentines
\nmade by small hands for loved ones. <\/p>\n

The Y’s on the sides allude to Yoko Ono’s Yes <\/i>piece and the Beatles I Love You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah<\/i>, which Mitchell has previously made as flags and plates.  He also makes pickle jars in porcelain. In White Weeds<\/i>,
\nthere are two real pickle jars in glass with a real light bulb, and
\npaper\/porcelain\/plaster chains, hands and hearts, the chains suggesting
\nan anchor at the bottom of the black sea, and a gourd for the balls it
\ntakes to keep making art across a lifetime.<\/p>\n

On the ceiling is
\nanother light bulb, the Holy Ghost from the Trinity that Warhol painted
\nas the bird from a Dove Soap bar. Mitchell encloses his light in a
\nBabar-the-Elephant foot, a heavy thing that floats without weight. <\/p>\n

Through Oct. 18.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hiking along the Nooksack River in the Cascade Range around Mount Baker, Claude Zervas began to focus on campsites filled with burnt evidence of previous habitation. One he carried home in his truck, rocks and all. Besides the usual shotgun shells, it contained the charred remains of an upholstered chair. Who burns a chair in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}