This title was digitized by the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia (MOCA GA).
About Art papers. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1981-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1981)
Jan Brooks Loyd, Crossed Signals, steel, 13" diameter, 1981 (photo: Dan Bailey, courtesy of the artist). as part of a total structure rather than individually, I was struck by a cohesiveness attributable to the repetition of scale and format, and amplified by a consistently high level of skill and manipulation of mater ials. Each series with its six to eight pieces is a statement based on the in terrelationships of the pieces and the resulting formation of a visual cadence. In two of the three series, Loyd takes the traditional plate form and destroys its meaning as a useful object. By successfully distorting this circular form, Loyd arrives at an end that is concurrently graphic and sculptural. The strongest of the three series is the series of eight large plates. Although the basic integrity of the cir cle remains intact, each has been pushed, torn, textured, cut, bent and colored. These pieces are weighty, sculptural, exquisite, and full of ef fective juxtapositioning of form against form. Called Collection Plates, these pieces are documentary. There is a story to be told. Having viewed the pieces initially unham pered by this information, I was now prepared to enjoy the work on a dif ferent level. Each plate is a collection of Loyd’s personal mental memor abilia, documentation of small events and daily occurrences. Earlier Collec tion Plates, not shown in this exhibi tion are more literal and less suc cessful. As in the pieces, Chickens and Stickers and Ants, we are not told an explicit story, but are privy to Loyd’s unique selectivity. In First Gray Hair, a gray steel plate form in which the circle is only slightly dis torted, brown textured areas curve hair-like across the plate and one lone strong sterling silver “hair” meanders across the surface. It is an accomplishment worth noting that Loyd has been able to relegate the humor in these pieces to a secondary position. The viewer is unexpectedly amused by gaining ac cess through titles to Loyd’s sources for these pieces. The work is an ex traordinary blend of intellectual creative activity and surprising capriciousness. Of this series, Collec tion Plate §11: Cross Signals is both the most recent and the most suc cessful. The piece exemplifies Loyd’s current concern with the creation of illusionary pieces meant to refute the flatness of the metal and to reduce the static quality of the work. The least successful piece in this series is Collec tion Plate §7: Passing Through. In this plate, the circle form is most distorted. Loyd seems to have gone just beyond the edge of proper scale that is so critical to these pieces and to which in other works, she is so sen sitive. Generally, the size of these pieces remains small enough to allow for the intimacy of the story-telling and yet large enough to make the story-telling necessarily secondary. The second series, a group of six smaller copper plates of equal size and similar color, is less demanding of the viewer’s attention and lacks the strong graphic or sculptural qualities of the other pieces. Within the con text of the whole exhibition, this series provides a pleasant lull. Loyd’s most serious concerns are obvious in the larger Collection Plate series where she wrestles with content- message, surface treatment that is rich and varied, and abstract form. They are examples of complete visual problem-solving. The smaller group deals primarily with surface treatment and the pieces are painterly in nature. By contrast, their impact is soft. The last series leaves the format of the plate and is related to the other pieces only in terms of scale and feel ing. These six Sketches are miniature in size, but echo the visual strength of the larger plates through Loyd’s use of strong color and confidently defin ed shapes. Loyd experiments with the effects of acids, natural elements and even food on different metals, and then considers these scraps of assorted colors and textures to be her palette. In contrast to the subtleties of the copper series, these multi-media sketches are highly graphic and documentary. Loyd’s work is weakest when it is the most literal. Of the small sketches, the least successful is Carolina Fence. Perhaps 1 have been “old-fenced- out” by other artists, but this somewhat realistic depiction of a fence really leaves little for specula tion. In Fishing Series, another of this group, four small silver puddles allude to ponds. The shapes and col ors of the metals provide clues and conjure up images of worms, poles and mud, but allow for a comfortable shift between the story and the abstraction of the story. Other than Carolina Fence, these sketches only hint at their sources, and the strength is in Loyd’s own personal abstraction of an experience. Appraisal of this exhibition as a whole reveals Loyd is certain about the intent and differences of each of these series and that in terms of her material, there is apparently nothing of which she is incapable. Her desired effects are created by such a multiplicity of techniques that her vocabulary seems endless. —Jane Kessler Jane Kessler is Assistant Curator of Exhibitions at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. Phil Elie, Harmonium, mixed media, 1981 (photo: courtesy of the artist). Phil Elie Chastain Arts Center Atlanta, Georgia July 10 - 31 Phil Elie’s viscosity prints, intaglios and paintings, although varied in con tent and medium, strike a deft bal ance between the figurative and the abstract, between rich texture and strong color. The 43 pieces figured in his debut exhibit were hung on sober gray fabric which relieved the seam less, subdued luminosity of the work nicely. The viewer entered a world of unresolved mysteries; recognizable images (faces, figures, leaves) seep through veils of magenta, chloro- phyllic green, thalo blue and ultramarine. These colors, washed, delineated and mingled in compact areas, allow resonant depth and a looser freshness, giving the pieces a gem-like finish which corresponds to their generally small scale. The vivid ness suggests a quiet exoticism. Color sometimes has a Third World efful gence and an occasional psychedelic verve, countered by a darkly burnish ed quality that recalls the lit-from- within surfaces of icons and Persian miniatures. Since Elie often begins by taking Polaroids of people, places and objects around him, his work’s sub jects may have personal meaning for the artist. However, the content of these casual, undramatic photo graphs is less important than the image to be transformed through printing or over-painting, placement on the paper, and incorporation into the work as a whole. In the larger paintings, one or two of the altered images are multiplied and placed side by side in a filmstrip-like series with the photo frames forming a grid. With each image colored separately, both the series and the grids are tinted so that the whole melds and the parts assume a rhythmic movement in the unified piece. In other works, one image serves as a motif for a group of pieces; dif ferent textures and shading unite the series as variations on a single theme. In the show’s title piece, Si Belle! Cybelle, the single woodcut, without a photo underlayer, is freer, abstract and more muscular—its vine or wave like swirls become darkly iridescent through the artist’s use of heightened chromatism. This intricate print, which suggests an unstructured Kokoschka, is placed playfully beside the exhibit’s most whimsical work, Harmonium, a functioning child’s organ that’s been “Elie-ized”—its plastic keyboard is supported by a stand, glazed deep green, golden yellow and candy apple red, like some drawingroom hurdy-gurdy for an infant Tsarina. As the titles suggest (Diamond Hubcap II, Bunny Lake, Treehouse Car, etc.), there’s a fanciful quality to the entire exhibition. The preoccupa tion with color as dazzle and the elegant abstractions in orientalized colors suggest the endpapers of rare editions; the scale (three-inch squares) hints at illustrations for uncommon storybooks. The artist’s irresolute reverence takes uncomplicated sub jects and converts them into artful holy cards. A Polaroid of an Ameri can girl is so bathed in indigo that its simple subject is etherealized, made obscure and sphynx-like. Elie has created an unselfcon sciously beautiful if somewhat airless realm which the viewer enters will ingly. What might have been precious succeeds as a personal vision. Although contemporary in technique, Elie’s work is ultimately Romantic. Considering the young artist’s technical assurance, singularity of view, and appealing idiosyncratic style, one hopes for future work that deepens and expands his vision. —Paul Evans Paul Evans, an Atlanta writer and musician, is currently completing a novel. Art Papers September-October 1981 20
