I came into the Apex space with a preconceived notion, having heard that Joe Park worked from photographs in a photorealistic manner. I wondered, is there still a place for this kind of realistic approach in this day and age? Anymore it’s a skill, not a vision, right? I was pleasantly surprised. What I had heard was wrong. I was delighted to find elements of fauvism, cubism, and deco paintings in the works presented. The surfaces of the panels were super smooth and slick: a very contemporary presentation that gives the work a slick, almost commercial feel; as if in an attempt to erase any sign of the brush. Even the ground is ambiguous. One knows it is painted panel and would at first glance believe Park to be using the natural grain, but this has been supplanted by the artist’s own grain. he allows us to see the panel, but changes the look and feel of the material.
This is most evident in ‘Machinist’ (2008) where the vice and various other tools painted to appear as if manufactured from wood. The simulated grain is so complex that it jumps off the panel and demands that the viewer search for dovetails that hold the structure of the vice together. The bolts attaching the vice to the table are of particular interest: they appear to be “carved” perfectly from the body of the tool due to the finely executed “grain.” The colors used in the rest of this piece are contrasting, but of very low intensity– adding to the prominence of the “wooden” objects.
The woodgrain device is used more subtly in ‘P.Leonilla’ (2009.) Here, only selected parts of the panel have a burled appearance which is masked by light layers of color to give a visual texture and depth to skin, shadows, and folds of fabrics that is in stark contrast to the flat and shiny surface of the painting itself. This painting especially has an Art Deco feel to it, directly referencing Tamara de Lempika’s angular style of portraiture.
Two still lifes from 2007 are included in the exhibition.
I love the banality of the subject matter in ‘Still Life #2’. Again, the burling effect is used with less finesse but still with impressive results. It is the negative spaces of this work that delight the eye– the light playing on the side of the table, inside the jar, and trickling through the blinds onto the wall. This is a painting about light; Impressionism circa 21st century.
‘Waiting for Claude’ (2008) is a study of contrasts. A balancing act of light and dark, bright and low light, of realism and abstraction. The liquid in the bottle and refracted light through the glass are stunning and diamond- like in complexity, while the composition is tight and simple. The glossy finish and dark, negative spaces give the illision of airbrush- perfect commercial art.
In contrast, ‘Absinthe’ (2009) is a very painterly delight, despite the slick finish. I am given to thoughts of Van Gogh, Picasso, and the Harlem Renaissance all at once. The colors are pastel, but intense. There is a sense of movement and perspective shifts that capture the essence of an absinthe heavy evening– the heady, mildly hallucinatory shift and shimmer of forms that have an aura of light emitting from them despite sitting in what should be darkness.
