Christopher Paul Jordan and Gustavo Martinez
By Alec Clayton
Published in the Weekly Volcano, Nov. 30, 2017
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| wall painted construction,” mixed media by Christopher Paul Jordan, photo by Gabi Clayton |
Christopher Paul Jordan might well be Tacoma’s
most prolific artist, and his fame is quickly spreading to Seattle and
elsewhere — deservedly so for this recent Neddy Artist Awards winner, if his
latest show at Kittredge Gallery is any indication.
The show is called Latent Home, and it features powerful work in painting, video, and
other media that is astounding both in terms of cultural commentary and as pure
aesthetics. Most of the work is what I would call sculptural painting, meaning
it is three dimensional but painting in concept. It is painting with an
expressionist bent that harkens back to artists such as Willem de Kooning and
burlap collages of Alberto Burri, and sculpturally it is like the bent car body
sculptures of John Chamberlain.
Along one wall is a series of photographs of
urban landscapes printed on styrene that has been bent, scratched and
apparently melted in spots. These pictures depict modern, gritty, urban scenes that are hyper-realistic and made even more so due to the rough
handling of the media. To the left of these photos hangs a mesh metal screen
upon which a photo is projected. The projected image is filtered through the
screen and lands on an abstract painting of incised, concave lines like bent
and broken tree limbs on a rough white surface that appears to be Styrofoam.
These lines dig into the surface about an inch deep and look as if they
were gouged out of stone. Abstract though it is, it calls to mind remnants of
ancient forest scenes.
Along the back wall are large photographs and
paintings of landscapes into which are incised more of the limb-like lines.
Also on this wall is a piece with jagged and multicolored cloth-like styrene
draped over a short rod that projects a foot or two from the wall, and near it
another similar piece that hangs from the ceiling like melted rubber or
plastic, or colorful laundry on a clothesline.
And then there is a painting applied directly to
the wall with colorful rectangles and protruding from it a black box covered
with many more of the multicolored scraps and shards of painted styrene, and on
the face of this box is an orange cardboard slide viewer that looks like the
face of ET.
Taken as a group, Jordan’s pieces defy easy
description. They combine harsh reality with lyrical abstraction. They reflect
the realities of abandoned city basketball courts and landscapes encroached
upon by urban sprawl and the mountains of debris that pile up in our landfills.
They are gritty, rough, colorful and quite beautiful.
In the back gallery is
Gustavo Martinez’s Guardians, Warriors, and Allies, 14 ceramic
sculptures of creatures that call to mind ancient Aztec gods. Rough and imaginatively,
these clay figures stand four-to-five feet tall and are embellished with
feathers, deer antlers, steel and epoxy, painted with acrylic paints. They
suggest Native American figures as well as fantasy gods and monsters.
These are shows that should be seen.
Christopher
Paul Jordan’s Latent Home plus Guardians Warriors and Allies by Gustavo
Martinez, Kittredge
Gallery, Monday-Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday noon to 5 p.m., through Dec.
9, 1500 N. Warner St., Tacoma, 253.879.3701
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