There will always be artists who start out by looking closely at the world, then by copying it in one way or another. Doing so makes sense, after all, since appearances are often where knowledge begins. Later, it may become necessary to look beneath the surface, to the deeper reality concealed within. Sculptor Ryan Moffett and painter Halee Roth begin with how they feel, or what they have learned from other disciplines, then seek visual metaphors to encode and express that knowledge. They create a way for themselves to better understand, and for others to apprehend through their eyes, what can be found out, couched in such familiar disciplines as anatomy and cartography.
In a very real way, every Ryan Moffett figure is a self-portrait that reveals an inner truth grounded in his experience. In “I Wish I Was a Sweater,” his knitted arms are knotted in an unmistakable embrace. In “It’ll Be Okay,” the two recesses that hold the stone and the photos, which stand for the past but also hope for his family’s future, could be brought together to depict his head, with these memories stored inside. Less poignant, perhaps, but more intimidating, many of the figures contain hints to his own health challenges. The central metaphor here is to the fraying and disconnection of electrical wiring, which closely parallels neurological breakdowns in the body.
Moffett knows the history of art and enjoys embedding it in his work. In “The Lonely Guitarist,” he takes pleasure at giving one of Picasso’s favorite painted subjects a third dimension. Every figure borrows from the mysterious self-image of the Cycladic Island People, with elongated heads and faces reduced to nose and mouth. In “Heaven and Earth,” an electric cord hangs where a heart would be expected, gravity seeking to ground this person to the earth that lies beyond its reach. In place of bone, metal ribs guard this cavity, keeping it safe but frustrating any attempt to connect and close the circuit. For better or worse, anatomy is finally destiny.
Generally, verbal explanations of art either reveal the work’s shortcomings or else are superfluous. For Moffett, they perform a necessary service. Each sculpture begins in a personal story that it connects to a universal truth. Those anecdotes he attaches allow those who will find the larger meaning on their own to also know where they began. And so, for example, reading about his daughter’s alarming ultrasound will not only elucidate “It’ll Be Okay,” but lend personal and family gravity to the several “Nativity” groups.
Halee Roth’s paintings, which surround and provide atmosphere to Moffett’s figures, initially suggest the Earth as seen from a great height, like satellite photographs taken for scientific or map-making use. The resemblance is not gratuitous, nor is the shared employment of illuminating texts. For “Coral Pink #2,” the artist identifies circular patterns that are formed when winds cause plants to scratch the surrounding desert soil. While many of the lines at first suggest flowing water, in this context they may conjure up anatomical structures like veins, ducts or neurons.
There are further, mimetic qualities in these elaborately evocative forms, smaller structures repeating in larger ones the artist exploits by using different materials: water, ink, bleach, copper, silver and gold metals. In “Winter River,” some of the cloudy shapes resolve on approach into elaborate drawings of extreme delicacy. There may be half a dozen or more ways of marking the paper, which she then mounts so smoothly it defies imagination for even experienced practitioners to see how the panels are made. Soft, often fuzzy realms of color contrast not only with the sharp marks among them, but with the hard, perfectly flat surface on which they lie.
Roth’s voluptuous abstractions fall midway between the largest and smallest structures in the desert, in the process invoking both. But they also reveal the interaction of animals and those plants that have necessarily evolved defenses against them: predators from which they cannot flee or readily outnumber. Much of the detailed knowledge that goes into these works will not be evident to every viewer, but the pleasingly elaborate and engaging images offer openings into their recognition and eventual appreciation, while they evoke what should be unsurprising feelings of recognition in those who find beauty in wilderness.
In the past, the gallery was usually a place apart from nature, a separate Creation, and the artists made to share it often did so with hostility, denigrating other practitioners and their genres. Indifference was all that could be hoped for. Today’s art is more likely to celebrate nature, and Bountiful Davis Art Center has a predilection towards holistic installations that become Creations in themselves. That may explain Moffett and Roth’s choice to show here, together. Her paintings, which are something other than landscapes, and his sculptures, which are not simply figures, are able to collaborate like figures in a landscape, and the relaxed way they accommodate each others visions has the capacity to comfort their audience.
Experience … Process … Discover, Bountiful Davis Art Center, Bountiful, through Sep. 21
Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.
Categories: Exhibition Reviews | Visual Arts