{"id":1224,"date":"2013-03-20T18:09:36","date_gmt":"2013-03-21T01:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talkinggrid.com\/?p=1224"},"modified":"2014-07-18T18:22:02","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T01:22:02","slug":"ola-manana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/ola-manana\/","title":{"rendered":"Ola Ma\u00f1ana"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Wynne Reeves @ BravinLee Programs subjective review of The Worms in the Walls at Mondrian’s House.By Ola Manana<\/p>\n

I walked into Bravin Lee Programs<\/a> on the Saturday of the Art Fairs. Lucky for me, the room was quiet, and uninhabited, except for the co-owner John Lee,who was manning the desk at the entrance. The quiet provided the intimacy required to fully appreciate the astonishing work on display.<\/p>\n

Every single work had the completeness of a song. The songs were strange. Prominent passages were as felt as a long note, rose and fell within the piece. Gradations of subtle midnight blues and blacks striated and streaked, dipped and peaked. Wires wove in. Whites whited out. Tiny animals popped up like groupings of notes. Sometimes, instead of animals, curious geometric figures appeared.<\/p>\n

\"far_away_but_not_far_apart_med\"<\/a>
\nFar Away But Not Far Apart, 2013, 15 x 23 inches<\/em><\/p>\n

In FAR AWAY BUT NOT FAR APART, two of these figures interact. One is a swash of black, white and phylocyanine green that peeps from the foreground. \u00a0He is a wide brush stroke waving with something like a symbolic wire arm to another abstract guy made of white blobs stacked on top of one another like a skinny six ball snow man. \u00a0The mood is ominous. The washy sky \u00a0suggests a coming thunderstorm.The bridge, overtaking the central plain contains the white figure who looms above and at a distance from his tri-colored friend. \u00a0An occasional wire is woven through the grid.The fragile reminder of metal deepens the surface both piercing it and hovering above it. The puncturing enlarges the depth behind the artwork and makes it larger. \u00a0Instead of being cute,which is the danger with small colorful paintings of deluxe stick figures, it is more than that.It is heartbreaking because you know the snow guy can’t get to the color guy. \u00a0Tiny, jubilant “arms” are raised in recognition of copacetic understanding. \u00a0It is a memory of a time when the going was tough and a comrade waved friendship. \u00a0Acknowledgement. Maybe even love. And that wave was enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"unexpected_boogie_woogie_med\"<\/a><\/span>
\nLaughing at Snakes 2011 to 2013, acrylic, old frame and wire on panel, \u00a032 x 11.5inches<\/em><\/p>\n

Many of these paintings seem to be pretending to be paintings about painting. \u00a0In UNEXPECTED BOOGIE WOOGIE, \u00a0a poetic ode to abstraction is neatly penciled onto the painting. The painting is stuck flat in an ornately carved wooden frame that was whitewashed, along with the cardboard. \u00a0\u00a0Midway through the poem Reeves writes –“Jazz needs heat. \u00a0Jazz has jaws.” It seems that the artist is using language in the same experimental way that she uses the material elements in her work. \u00a0There is a rise, a fall, a web, a wire, a drip. The painting is surreal. Her ode to abstraction does not belong ON an abstract painting. \u00a0She’s obliterated the lovely frame, yet included it. \u00a0\u00a0A pile of what appears to be empty lollipop sticks is stuck with dribbles of goldy brown resin to the “gutter” between cardboard and frame . \u00a0The resin suggests melted candy that has been sucked off, spit out, and then stretched into the triangle on the left upper corner. \u00a0Most unexpectedly, two hooks opposite each other are cranked into the front of the painting. \u00a0A wire attached to each hook forms a vertical line. \u00a0The tension between abstraction and figuration is stated implicitly in the poem. But I think it is just there to throw the viewer. \u00a0Disinformation distracts from the trail of candy drool, the surreal symbols and whatever they mean.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"laughing_at_snakes_2011_to_med\"<\/a>
\nLaughing at Snakes 2011 to 2013, crylic, old frame and wire on panel, \u00a032 x 11.5 inches<\/em><\/p>\n

Ms. \u00a0Reeves paints like the memory of a dream. There is a constant interplay between \u00a0vague and \u00a0recognizable elements. \u00a0She tricks or treats you with her surfaces. \u00a0She’s the type that can’t be typed, the nut that can’t be cracked. \u00a0She reveals and obscures vigorously and what is left is the interplay between doubt and conjecture, scribbling out and scribbling in.<\/span><\/p>\n

In LAUGHING AT SNAKES, it seems as if her painting is threatening to burst into SCULPTURE. \u00a0Again she makes use of a frame, as part of the painting itself, but does not even bother to fill the painting in. \u00a0Instead, it appears Reeves has dripped pools of peachy \u00a0paint on a surface, left them to dry and pulled up the creamy plastic shapes and arranged them just so in and around the frame. \u00a0Nothing else is left to chance, its the collecting nesting bit of a busy pack rat. Not even the wire the piece is hanging from is left to chance. \u00a0Instead of a utilitarian hanging purpose, this wire is festooned like a party hat upon the painting. \u00a0There is something funny about it. \u00a0It’s make believe second shift surrealism. \u00a0\u00a0Meaning is alluded to through abstraction. For me, the painting has anthropomorphized. \u00a0It is flesh and skin. It’s the guy at the party that’s all fucked up with leis and crepe paper trailing behind him. No one wants to be him, \u00a0but he doesn’t exactly want to be you, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am enjoying my walk around the room. \u00a0I like that I can’t figure out what Ms. Reeves is doing. \u00a0What “school” she is participating in. \u00a0I like that her paintings are stories about life and then stories about art. \u00a0She’s obviously aware of the art historical context of her work. \u00a0She knows of Eva Hesse, and Rauschenberg, and Beatrix Potter for that matter. \u00a0None of these possible influences seem to have a hierarchy for her. \u00a0If there is precedent to the articulation of paint, the type of stroke or family of color it has all gone through the Reeves wringer, and come out entirely hers. \u00a0There is a story here. \u00a0In fact there is a book attached to this body of work. \u00a0A book of vignettes of perfect prose that seems to reflect the temperature of the paintings.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"bird_healer_2012_gouache_med\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bird Healer, 2012, gouache, wire pencil and hair on hard molding paste on paper, 12 x 15.5 inches<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

In BIRD HEALER, I am transported by a wild country scene. \u00a0Baby blue, turquoise, and hurricane pink form the backdrop of the narrative. \u00a0A couple of rifles have fired on a group of birds. \u00a0Someone’s out hunting. \u00a0A blast of powder blue feathers? smoke? rises in a frenzy to mingle with a cloud formation. \u00a0A bird has been shot, midair. \u00a0Another is hurrying away, but looking back. Schadenfreude. There is a dead one lying on the ground, and another wreath of limp feathers draped around the hand of what is apparently the Bird Healer. \u00a0All of the drama is happening with the birds. \u00a0The geese with their sketchy \u00a0simplicity all have their row to hoe now. \u00a0It is a time where everyone is in danger. \u00a0The killing and the healing are happening at once. \u00a0The healer stands melting in and out of the color fields. \u00a0She is pink to cobalt violet, tall in relation to the scene. \u00a0She can not be hurt by the bullets whizzing by. \u00a0Instead she has become part smoke herself, a tottering stack of blocks that relies upon her own unbelievable form to weather life’s trials. \u00a0She alone has bothered to retrieve the injured one. \u00a0She’s barely a huddle of lines this one. \u00a0But there’s hope. \u00a0Amid all the action there is silence. \u00a0The end of the story is suspended like the bird stranded, mid air. \u00a0And I am left to do what humans do : fill in all the blanks so I can understand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

I can’t be sure if my story and the artist’s story go together. \u00a0It is within the\u00a0<\/span>realm of possibility that the fantasies constructed from a tiny pile of hair, a button, a blob of paint that has been placed like a wad of gum, all of the stories I attach to the art are coming from me and have no bearing on the artist’s intent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nAnd that is why this work works for me. \u00a0When I go inside it, \u00a0enough room has been left for me to walk around and take what I need, as a viewer. \u00a0In that way the work has succeeded by being both personal and universal. \u00a0Specific but not didactic. Jennifer Wynne Reeves has suspended my disbelief in the rainbow stick figure.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0And I can imagine, he’s waving at me.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ola\u00a0Ma\u00f1ana \u00a9 2013, publishable by permission only.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Wynne Reeves @ BravinLee Programs subjective review of The Worms in the Walls at Mondrian’s House.By Ola Manana I walked into Bravin Lee Programs on the Saturday of the Art Fairs. Lucky for me, the room was quiet, and uninhabited, except for the co-owner John Lee,who was manning the desk at the entrance. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spirituality-art-chat"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/bird_healer_2012_gouache_med.jpg?fit=430%2C342&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1230,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions\/1230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}