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| "You Have Been Warned" digital mixed media by Chuck Smart |
The exhibition called “Wet” and subtitled “Abstract Expressionism
in fluidity, movement and space” at B2 Fine Art is a retrospective of work by
Chuck Smart with some works by other well-known artists thrown in — like Yakime
Brown, who is beginning to make a splash in New York; Judy Hintz Cox, a regular
at B2 who has four excellent paintings in this show. And just for good measure
there are a few glass vessels by Dale Chihuly. But Brown, Chihuly and Cox are
bonus artists. What this show is really all about is the amazing artwork of
Chuck Smart.
As an artist and musician, Smart has earned recognition throughout
the world. He passed away in 2008. B2 owner Gary Boone calls this showing of
his work a retrospective. It is a small but varied sampling of his work
(approximately 20-30 pieces). I was astounded at his ability to work in many
different styles and media with obvious skill and vision in each, from highly
expressive digital and mixed media imagery combining abstract and figurative
elements — a blending of Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, de Kooning, a hint of Kenneth Patchen and a big dose
of Jean-Michael Basquiat — to simple, pop-related imagery with flat but vibrant
color application (no visible brushmarks), to soft-focus and blurred
photographs of faces and urban scenes.
Eclectic? You bet. And in a most delightful way. Most of all it is
the haunted and fearsome faces glaring at the viewer and his broken, staccato
line that makes this work so powerful.
A signature piece at the front of the gallery is “Art Is,” words
and images in a combination of collage, digital prints and paint all awash in a
vortex of red. Another piece titled “Cleveland” uses all of the same elements
plus pencil drawing, but instead of the swirling tornado of paint the imagery
is unified by bands of soft red and tan that weaves it all together like a
basket.
The most haunting of all his works may be “You Have Been Warned,”
digital mixed media with Basquiat-like drawings of four figures with big heads,
saucer eyes, and distorted and emaciated bodies, much of the drawing done by
scratching into wet paint with something like (probably) the wrong end of a
paint brush.
Brown’s paintings are mostly of fountain-like floods or sprays of
paint bursting upwards with brilliant colors and paint as much as a
quarter-inch thick. I can see that these could be exceedingly popular, but to
me they are too slick, too pretty. His most powerful work is a black and white
painting called “You Talk Too Much,” a waterfall of white on a smooth black
ground gushing downward from the top of the canvas and splashing back up when
it hits the bottom. Underneath all of this movement is a cascade of hundreds of
letters in something like Arial bold type.
My favorite Hintz Cox works are two mostly black on white
paintings that are incredibly rich and expressive.
[B2 Fine Art Gallery, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, till 9
p.m. Third Thursdays, through June 14, 711
St. Helens Avenue, Tacoma, 253.238.5065]
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