Irene Rampton, “Mom & Me Out on the Town,” watercolor and gouoache, 19 x 13 in.

There is one portrait figure by Irene Rampton that stands out at Phillips Gallery. “Mom and Me Out On the Town” differs in the way it observes not the unique look of a sole figure, but includes two women who are as noteworthy for their similarities as for their contrasts. The artist has placed them side by side—so close, in fact, that they merge into a single object, like a Yin Yang figure that is staid brown on one side and flaming red on the other. Each woman’s neck is wrapped in a variation on her dress that works like the complementing dots on a Yin Yang design: Mom’s stole is spotted to echo the circles on her dress, her daughter’s is solid black to go with the solid red of her attire, but the value of each stole, light or dark, matches that of the other’s body. It’s in the faces, though, that the likeness and contrasts matter most: two long ovals, four pink cheeks, two pursed sets of lips: they could be sisters, twins even, except that one sports a bushy head of red hair, the other a similar coif of gray.

It wasn’t that long ago that illustration and art could be distinguished by their different roles. Illustrators focused on showing what things looked like, while artists went further, conjuring truths that the surface might imply could be better found deep within. Fashion gave us one of the primary realms of illustration, detailing an external truth, a statement one could don and so convey in a visual instant, then shed just as easily. One talented illustrator, though—Andy Warhol, whose metier was shoes—managed almost single-handedly to convince the world that the look of things was more noteworthy, more accessible and easier to share, than any forever uncertain allegation about what lay beneath.

Irene Rampton, “My Favorite Time Of Day,” watercolor and gouoache, 13 x 13 in.

Warhol made celebrities, who were often said to be famous just for being well known and recognizable, into one of the essential talismans of art, and his influence eventually came to dominate much of all the arts. So we might say we have, in the stylish figures of Irene Rampton, so many celebrities: figures we don’t know, but whom we are able to recognize from their individual, yet familiar self-projections. In bright colors, often marked by polka-dots, or circles that are the same but for not being filled in, each strikes an eloquent pose, leaning or even folding, face touched by one or both hands. We see her, and it’s always her, frontally, or occasionally in profile, and she almost always has an accessory, such as personal jewelry or a hat. Sometimes, though, it’s not worn: “Don’t Rush Me” and “My Favorite Time of Day” both feature clocks. The title, usually a phrase that might just as well be spoken, always suggest what might be on her mind or what she might wish to signal, but art is still one of the dwindling number of free spaces in our lives, and a viewer who recognizes an old friend cannot be stopped from assigning a personal identification to her image.

Each figure, then, takes her identity not from a name, but from a state of mind that she embodies in turn, whether sincerely or ironically. That’s why she never smiles: complete corporeal expression takes total concentration. Such facial gestures as occasionally appear are leakage. And of course the dazzling clothes double as costumes that may serve to reveal, or conceal, the person within, but must satisfy both her projected image and amour-propre, which isn’t always the same as taste.

There are a finite number of body parts, but an infinite number of ways to combine their positions, just as there are a finite number of emotions, but a vast variety of social circumstances to trigger them.  As an artist, Irene Rampton has chosen a single subject, one trick if you like, but it’s a great one, both in scope and quality. With it, she continues to more finely subdivide the expressive potential of human physiognomy in keeping with her expanding experience of social advantages and deficits. As befits her training and practice, her visual focus is as sharp as her psychological insight, so that in an era where form too often struggles with function, her look neatly matches her intention. Her subjects may be anonymous, but we know them all the same.

Irene Rampton, Phillips Gallery, Salt Lake City, through Mar. 9

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.