{"id":74260,"date":"2024-02-22T07:20:13","date_gmt":"2024-02-22T14:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=74260"},"modified":"2024-02-28T07:19:02","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T14:19:02","slug":"irene-ramptons-portraits-unveil-the-celebrity-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/irene-ramptons-portraits-unveil-the-celebrity-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Irene Rampton’s Portraits Unveil the Celebrity Within"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Irene Rampton, “Mom & Me Out on the Town,” watercolor and gouoache, 19 x 13 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

There is one portrait figure by Irene Rampton that stands out at Phillips Gallery. \u201cMom and Me Out On the Town\u201d 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\u2014so 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\u2019s neck is wrapped in a variation on her dress that works like the complementing dots on a Yin Yang design: Mom\u2019s stole is spotted to echo the circles on her dress, her daughter\u2019s 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\u2019s body. It\u2019s 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.<\/h4>\n

It wasn\u2019t 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\u2014Andy Warhol, whose metier was shoes\u2014managed 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.<\/h4>\n
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Irene Rampton, “My Favorite Time Of Day,” watercolor and gouoache, 13 x 13 in.<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u2019t 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\u2019s always her, frontally, or occasionally in profile, and she almost always has an accessory, such as personal jewelry or a hat. Sometimes, though, it\u2019s not worn: \u201cDon\u2019t Rush Me\u201d and \u201cMy Favorite Time of Day\u201d 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.<\/h4>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019t always the same as taste.<\/h4>\n