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14 FLACP0LE.COM JULY 14,201
CELLULOID AND MYSTICISM
In a town of Athens' size, it's no surprise
that one would recognize the same artists
cropping up again and again in galleries and
restaurants across town. This week, I found
myself on the business end of two local art
ists' shows, both of whose work you may
already be familiar with (due to their fairly
high level of visibility in the art community),
although you may not be familiar with them.
The Film Buff: Jeremy Hughes, a recent
graduate of UGA's MFA program (and painter-
about-town) brings a large collection of work,
new and old, to The Grit, nicely filling both
spacious rooms. You might remember my
writing about Hughes several months ago in
Art Notes—some of these same works were
recently on display at White Tiger Gourmet on
Hiawassee; additionally, his upsetting paint
ing "Closure" was featured on the cover of
Flagpole back in April of
'09. In a town this small,
’t was inevitable that our
paths would cross, which
they eventually did sev
eral months ago. Already
familiar with his work,
and meeting him for the
first time, I found myself
wondering, "Why's a nice
guy like this painting such
terrifying pictures?"
Which is, of course,
being a little overly sim
plistic. Hughes' primary
tool is his appropriation,
remixing and reorganiza
tion of cultural signifiers
and icons, almost exclu
sively from film and televi
sion. In Hughes' work, the
Ghostbusters are as likely
to appear as the "zigzag
room" from David Lynch's
"Twin Peaks."
The newer, smallish
pieces on display at The
Grit draw heavily from
Hitchcock's The Birds, with
some additional elements
thrown in here and there.
Hughes' characteristically
fleshy brushwork recklessly depicts his figures
with an almost dispassionate grace; any emo
tional response we have to these images is
colored by our preexisting relationship to their
sources. During my first viewing of The Birds,
I can't say I was hiding behind the couch in
terror—but something about Hughes' editing
seems to bring terror where, for me, there was
none before. If anything, viewing the smallish
'Tippi's Makeup," which shows a production
still of actress Tippi Hedren coolly gazing into
the composition (in full post-bicd-attack) is
a deeply troubling experience. I found myself
excited by Hughes' new work, its renewed
commitment to mark, and its bizarre intent
to unsettle. If his lewis of production remain
what they are (and I hope they do) we should
see more good things in the not too distant
future. On view at The Grit through July 25.
The Material Mystic: Lea Purvis' works are
equally unsettling, but she's got a whole dif
ferent set of tools in her box. Currently on
display at the Espresso Royale Caffe is a
body of related pieces that (I suspect) only
begin to showcase the range of Purvis' con
siderable skills. An artist after my own heart
Purvis combines drawings, transfers, collages,
paint, wax, gels, erasure and collage into her
work—and occasionally, all of that into indi
vidual pieces. Looking like they were designed
to fit the space they're hanging in, the results
are quietly enveloping environments of mate
rial interaction that aren't easily forgotten or
dismissed.
Although the characters and critters that
populate Purvis' paintings are gracefully drawn
with an elegant use of line, it's their abstract
environments that really do it for me. In four
heavily worked and collaged square composi
tions, a lone wolf howls from a tangle of wax,
gel, paint and collage that traps the lone fig
ure in between its layers. There's a lot of con
trol in these pieces, despite the frantic visual
quality of the mark making and the materials.
Purvis knows what she's doing; there's no
doubt about that.
leremy Hughes' paintings are on display at The Grit through July 25.
In the last Art Notes, I referenced the mir
roring of violence in both nature and politics
in the cut-paper pieces of Melissa Dickensen
(currently on view at ATHICA as part of the
ATHICA Emerges: "Uncertainty" series). In
Purvis' compositions. I'm continually made
aware of a mirroring of violence, but these
conflicts seem quieter, more internal. These
images are in a constant act of becoming,
and that becoming is not without struggle
or pain. That they say all this to me through
their material use is what's most interesting.
Purvis and I briefly spoke about her upcoming
projects, which involve changing up her cast
of animals for figures; I can't wait to see what
she does next. On display at ERC for the next
couple of weeks. Hur y and see it
Correction: In the last Art Notes, I unfor
tunately neglected to mention the two guest
curators for the this year's ATHICA Emerges
exhibition: Katherine McQueen and Katherine
Holmes, both of whom put together a hand
some show. They'll be speaking, along
with the artists, about the exhibition, this
Thursday, July 15 from 7-8 p.m. at AiHICA.