Paul Reynolds, photo by Shalee Cooper<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Paul Reynolds returns to the\u00a0Finch Lane Gallery\u00a0for the first time since 2004 with a majestic exhibition of abstract and nonrepresentational paintings rich in color and content. Reynolds\u2019 new body of works, created since his 2007 solo exhibition at The Gallery at Library Square, explores dynamic tensions made visible as autobiography, investigated through a new visual vocabulary. Seemingly disparate elements work together, binding each work into a cohesive whole, giving the exhibition a voice that speaks to the viewer. Reynolds singular style finds influence from Abstract Expressionism as overall gestures are imbued not only with marks, scratches, and stencils, but with personal meaning that yearns to reach the surface.<\/p>\n All the paintings are oil and graphite on birch wood panels; within the body of work there are subgroups dependant on framing technique, color palette, and subject matter. Frames are an integral part of the whole to Reynolds, who chooses a frame for its character, cuts and places the birch wood panel into the frame, then treats the frame as yet another surface in the overall work. One loose group of works is placed in window frames that have been gathered from annual garbage pick up or were donated by friends. The window frames are scraped then sized with a birch panel. These frames are raw, lending the work a feeling of originality.<\/p>\n Each painting is a journal, beginning as a blank surface within which to create a dialogue. Reynolds absorbs cues (be they visual, or not) from a variety of sources: images from the road, from walls; graffiti; random patterns. Pattern, shape, imagery, and content are processed and incorporated into his works in layers of meaning. Reynolds\u2019 artist statement codifies this investigation: \u201cMy paintings are getting messier. The recent pieces lean toward the world of marks and lines more than that of shapes. Recognizable objects show up as they would on a wall exposed to random scribblers. I take my cue from casual graffiti, wall histories, tar repairs, paint-outs, old manuscripts, bird tracks, and maps.\u201d<\/p>\n With the first layer of paint, Reynolds begins a dialogue with himself and the work, drawing upon past occurrences and current events to shape each individual painting. This personal dialogue is layered with paint, with words covered and meaning obscured. It is a fascinating notion, tracing the life of a painting that travels from the artist\u2019s deeply personal intent, to the anonymity of a work ending up in someone else\u2019s home, who may not know of the secrets buried in the paint. \u201cThere are stories and secrets embedded in these paintings. I carry on conversations with myself and make notes to others, scratch the words into the paint, and then half bury them as the layers build, making a history of shifting thoughts and perspectives. I like the tension between the exposed and the masked.\u201d<\/p>\n When Reynolds begins a work, there is no pre-conceived notion of what it will become. It\u2019s about intuition at lightning speed, \u201cwith the same theory that the most important decisions in your life should be given the least amount of thought.\u201d Marks are intuitively made, then Reynolds responds to those marks, adding layer upon layer of paint, painting out imagery that doesn\u2019t work in the overall intent of the piece. Ideas come from marks that are already laid on the panel, wherein positive and negative space dance together to bring about form.<\/p>\n With several of these new works, Reynolds moves away from nonrepresentational shapes by introducing realism in small doses. \u201cBirthday\u201d includes a stencil of his daughter, her left hand covering her mouth.\u00a0In her right hand \u2014 painted as an extension of the stencil \u2014 she holds a dead mouse. Reynolds painted in her arm to complete the representational aspect of the work. Is she laughing, or holding her nose? It\u2019s impossible to tell, but to ask the question is to find the humor that flits across the surface of Reynolds work. This is one of the works surrounded by a window pane; its representational aspect setting it apart from the other white window frame paintings.<\/p>\n At least half the works in the show are nonrepresentational. \u201cUnderground,\u201d another white window frame painting, has three mustard-colored blocks of layered paint in an otherwise winter-white field of muted hues. Letters have been painted on the panel, then painted-out.\u00a0The left side of the painting has marks etched onto the panel itself, appearing at first to be a discernable language. The new language Reynolds creates is known only to him; finding its origins in writings left by a great uncle in his schoolbooks from the turn of the twentieth century.<\/p>\n The cool, winter landscape mood of the white window frame paintings give way to other works in the exhibition. \u201cHow Tall?\u201d is a charged work springing up from a vibrant field of ochre and olive green.\u00a0The background pulsates as pyramid shapes reminiscent of jagged western mountains provide resting points on the painting. In the lower right corner is the ghostly imprint resembling a person, moving us off the panel to a land not yet imagined. On the left of the panel a measuring device runs vertically, demarcating unidentified units in regular intervals.<\/p>\n Autobiography continues in two works: \u201cRalph\u201d\u00a0and \u201cMillie and Jack.\u201dRalph was Reynolds\u2019 father, an advertising artist whose circle of friends included Ed Maryon, Steve Macdonald, and dozens of other Utah artists and designers. It is the largest painting in the show, and a departure from other works in the exhibition. It is a complex dialogue with a father fondly remembered, a purely autobiographical work that provides more representational imagery overlaid upon secretive marks. Ralph\u2019s portrait looks straight at us from the lower center section of the painting. Above him are images reminiscent of the father-son relationship: a magpie\u2019s nest, significant to the pair; a bicycle; Ralph reaching up to knock snow from the trees.<\/p>\n \u201cMillie and Jack\u201d is another familial portrait, as interpreted through the vision of another artist.\u00a0Millie was Reynolds\u2019 grandmother. Jack was Jack Sears, legendary artist whose illustrations could be found not only in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, but in newspapers and magazines nationwide. Sears was a long-time art professor at the University of Utah, whose illustrious career included lessons from the American artist Robert Henri in New York City and Utah\u2019s J. T. Harwood. Sears\u2019 drawing of Reynolds\u2019 grandmother is a small work in pencil: it is a drawing of the back of Millie\u2019s head. Reynolds redrew and restyled the drawing at a larger scale, cut a stencil from this drawing, and then applied it to the wood panel in his painting three times, with each stencil image appearing fainter than the last. Reynolds avoids turning all three images into a serial portrait a la Andy Warhol. Rather, this portrait is mysterious and tender: each fading image of Millie belies a relationship between painter and subject we won\u2019t know.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/01s.jpg\")
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