Review / Informed Opinions

 

June Issue 1999

 

Phil Garrett & Bob Chance: New Work
Morris Gallery - Columbia
A Review

 

by Mary Bentz Gilkerson

 

The Devine Street corridor may not be part of the official "arts district" in Columbia, SC, (i.e. the Vista), but there is usually something worth visiting in one of the galleries dotting the area.
A show of recent work at the Morris Gallery by Phil Garrett and Bob Chance explored new directions for both artists. Although the exhibit ran through April 15, works by both artists can still be seen at the gallery.

Sometimes the combination of two artists' pieces just doesn't work. There has to be some relationship or connection between them for the combination to be effective. Garrett and Chance's work complement and echo each other in their exploration of natural themes, playing off their use of simplified forms and strong color in two very different media. It would be interesting to see what might happen in collaborative works that brought their mutual concerns together into a single piece.

Bob Chance presents simple, elegant ceramic vessel forms, pieces that have smooth curvilinear shapes with wonderful crackled surfaces created by the raku process he uses to fire his pots.
His vessels carry their organic motifs through from the actual forms of the pots into their surface decorations. This integral relationship between form and embellishment has a playful Zen quality to it.

Verde is a tall container that swells as it moves up to the simplified wing shapes that form the lid. This swelling reinforces the bird themes introduced through the dark crow on the painted surface folds its wings towards the lid.

The darkened form against a lit back-ground also appears in many of Phil Garrett's new monotypes, acrylics and gouaches. He has included the horses he has become known for, but is beginning to move into more work with the human form, specifically the female figure, than he has shown in a long time.

The most successful of these treat the figure with the same sense of mystery as the horses. Angled Figure and Bather effectively use the silhouette to create a rich interplay between figure and ground.

Angled Figure is a dark purple, almost black silhouetted human form against an intensely colored richly worked ground. There is a hint of a second figure or shadow in the lighter area behind the figure. The boxing in of the figure with bold strokes of the brush creates a visual and conceptual tension.

In Bather the figure is more defined, definitely female. Her dark shape stands out from the bright blue behind her. A hot red light plays across her arms, pulling them into sculptural volume from the flatness of the rest of the body.

Somnambulist and Colt, both acrylics on canvas, continue Garrett's exploration of the horse. The strong contrasts in light and dark and the ambiguity of figure and ground wrap Somnambulist in mystery. The horse emerges from the bottom of the canvas as a dark blue-black form against a red background.

Colt, on the other hand, is bathed in clear bright light. The animal faces the viewer as if contemplating jumping straight out of the picture.

Some of these works seem to be less about women and horses per se than about using those images as vehicles for exploring the interplay of color, light and markmaking. That makes for some interesting and beautiful artworks. But the ones that stay with you, that have the most lasting power are the ones like Angled Figure and Somnambulist that ask more questions than they answer.

 

Mary Bentz Gilkerson is an artist and writer living in Columbia, SC. She is a member of the faculty in the Art Department at Columbia College.

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