Review: Then and Now

Nine artists, collectively known as Paintpushers, opened their annual show at the Fitch Gallery (304 15th Street) on October 27.  Kathryn Downing’s display of humor evoked thoughts of The New Yorker’s cartoons and attracted me after a long day of covering political events. I particularly liked the farm buildings seen through the outline shape of a UFO and the canine archeologist brought a smile. Even when Downing’s theme turned to political messages, her simple lines and bright colors cheered my soul. This was the case with her painting of a young woman blowing bubbles shaped like doves. According to the artist’s statement on the Paintpushers’ web site, Downing uses an encaustic paint, made from refined beeswax, danar resin, and pigments.

Jacqueline Roate’s focus is linear. Curves are created with changes in line angles which distortes portraits. This was particularly visible in the face of one painting’s subject. Roate compensates for the lack of curves by using long lines to direct the viewer’s eyes and also by leaning some of the portrait subjects in one direction or another. Her palette, consisting of shades of brown, intensifies the power of the lines.

Several people at the opening were having fun with Julie VandeBerg’s interactive art. A statement at the show told a story of two birds that inspires VandeBerg. The girl bird wanted a better place to live so she left the nest to search for a new home. The boy bird grew lonely and went in search of the girl bird. He could not find her so he returned home, where the girl bird waited. All the other nests had their own problems, which made her home not seem so bad. VandeBerg paints plaster blocks with images of buildings and laundry and creates metal backgrounds with birds perched along a utility line. She also makes faces from four blocks (two eyes, a nose, and a mouth). The interchangeability of parts was emphasized in one piece where four sets of four blocks formed a contained square.

Roy Cacek works in computer designs for his paid jobs and has incorporated the idea of pixels, standing in for mosaic tiles, into his art. I was looking at his work close-up, trying to decide what random ridges of paint meant when I saw a woman looking at the paintings from a distance. I stepped back and asked her what she thought of Cacek’s work and she said it makes much more sense when viewed from several feet away. We both particularly liked the scene of a city at night, with cars’ headlights creating a brilliant blur at street level, a condition that is accentuated by rain.

The other five artists (Amy Wood Thomas, Charlotte Redman, Chris Vance, Kristine Clemons, and Claudia Cole Meek) also have their own strengths and weaknesses. The show runs through November 8 (9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Saturday noon to 4:00 p.m.) and offers visitors the opportunity to see a variety of ways in which paintings can be conceived and executed.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.