 |
|
|
|
Art Review Archives:
|
Eric Semelroth: Portraits
Triangle Gallery of Old Town
Triangle Gallery of Old Town offers 21 portraits by Chicago artist, Eric Semelroth. The eight graphite renderings and thirteen full color pastels constitute not just a display of accomplished technique, but showcase the artist's intense interest in a wide sampling of human personalities. In both the graphite renderings and the color works the artist uses oblique lighting for a chiaroscuro in which the highlights and shadows sharpen every furrow and crease in his subjects' faces. If, as traditionally believed, the soul is reflected through the eyes, then Semelroth confirms that its consequent life history is sculpted in the skin. Each portrait lays bare a course of life, with no need of dates or particulars. The artist himself admits to an acute interest in the stories of his sitters and sometimes, often with a benign irony, counterpoints them with titles that allude to markers pulled from social or art history. "Madame X" (1992), the first in the black and white series, presents a young black female student wearing a Malcolm X cap. Semelroth has said that at the time he chose the title, there had come to mind John Singer Sargent's "Madame X," a pointedly different work. The divide between Semelroth's contemporary image and one of Sargent's most elegant and, in its own time (1884), controversial paintings brings an awareness of how with the passing of time the nature of artistic subjects has changed even more than the media and execution of art. The Nineteenth century rebellion against high idealization and toward the personalized commonplace today reigns as the all-pervasive norm . In almost half of Semelroth's currently exhibited works, the viewer is drawn to search for the title allusion or a lineage, only to confront an about-face. It is easy for a viewer to wander off into speculation. Or wonder if the artist isn't including the viewer/cataloguer in his observations. Above all, everything in the works displayed is about face-- actual or assumed. And each does leave a strong impression. The viewer cannot help but closely observe and delight in the direct gaze of humanness as much as the artist-- a decent, empathetic, but undeceived interpreter. Where the artist doesn't play a title off its associated work, he reverts to a label that is stark and categorically direct. The 1992 graphite image of artist and mentor, Ed Paschke, is titled only with the subject's name. It needs only that. I would be surprised if this piece and the artist's "Self Portrait" (1994) were not sold before the exhibition's closing. The portrait of art critic, James Yood, is entitled "The Critic Smiles." The seemingly sardonic smile manages to create a portrait that is as sympathetic as it is intimidating. Among the other black and white works, three are particularly intriguing. "Man with Nose Broken 9 Times" (1993) does not record an individual whose life was spent professionally in pugilism or heavy labor. The portrait reveals a tightly-wound, bellicose, hell-raising middle-aged scrapper. This was once a regular character type in the "City of Big Shoulders." Semelroth has captured for posterity an individuality within a type, and it is a type that is losing ground in a society where belligerence is ever more likely to be terminal. The artist's "Barfly" (1993) is in a similar vein. It records a subject somehow defeated, by life or perhaps himself.
The portrait presents, not a bar-going pleasure-seeker or a rip-roaring drinker, but a quiet, even dignified face, subtly sad and world-weary. It is the sort of face one might have seen earlier in out-of-the-way downtown gin mills or in the back corner of a Hopper painting... before gentrification and upscaling. The artist does capture something more than just a likeness, or even one individual. "Mojo Man" (1992) captures a personality I can see, but which confounds any attempt to explain. The model traffics in astrology, Caribbean and alternative spiritualities, the unorthodox and the underground. Like the Mona Lisa's elusive smile, the physiognomy of "Mojo Man" seems to oscillate between shaman and charlatan, an uneasy sadness or a disdainful spiritualizing. It is certainly art well worth seeing. "The Preacher" (1994) is the first in the curator's hanging of the color pastel series (although "Blue Boy" (1993) marked the artist's transition from concentrating on graphite toward an expansion into color pastels again). It does make a vivid contrast being hung so close to "Mojo Man." At the opening reception the artist commented that he was drawn to the clerical collar as a visual element with the visage. "Dorothy" (1997) was a commissioned work. It is one of the few works with an overt smile, but so natural and appropriate that one is certain the artist has captured the sitter rather than satisfied any conventional expectation. If this isn't the actuality, then the artist has performed an even more impressive tour de force. "Blind Justice" (1996) deserves particular note. It is the portrait of a Cook County judge who is blind and studied law by Braille. Semelroth obtained permission to execute the work in the judge's chambers. The sitter obviously did have to accept the artist's skills on faith -- faith well justified. It is the face of one who cannot see his own face and has a quality of looking beyond the unseen immediate -- a portrait of perseverance and equanimity. Beyond just the punning title, there is a further play of spirit in realizing the very individual who might be most interested in seeing the art, the sitter, is the one who cannot. Semelroth's "Portrait of a Butcher" (1995) is one of those works which stays with one and which draws one to second and third trips to the gallery. If there is such a thing as one's work leaving its imprint on the countenance, then the artist's butcher reveals the phenomenon. While the artist was able to offer no explanation for the healed, deep cleft in the sitter's upper lip, it offers the imagination all manner of speculation. It is a powerful and hypnotizing portrayal. One forgets that pastel is not often used for that end.
In his searching out of desired models, the artist makes no reservations. It is his uncle who sat for "The Mortician" (1995). By the artist's own account, he felt that this was a profession which does not seem to have entered often into the art world's notice. Semelroth mentioned that he did have Diego Valazquez in mind while executing the work. It is left to the viewing public to decide if the observation is germane. "Prizefighter" (1994) is a portrait of boxer, Leon Spinx, who sat at table with the artist and talked about his career, prior to sitting for the pastel portrait. It is worth a close and attentive viewing. The fighter does bear signs of his profession, but, somehow, they seem surprisingly well-taken when compared with the image of others such as "Man with Nose Broken 9 Times." The differences in bearing and demeanor between the two portrayals are a lesson in human character here worthy of Valazquez. "Blue Boy" (1993) is the piece which marks Semelroth's turning from the graphite medium to color pastel in recent years. While descriptive of the essentially monotone work, the title is also a link to Thomas Gainsborough's popularly named "Blue Boy." The artist said that this started out as a watercolor, but he was not satisfied with the development and he then completed it as a color pastel. It was the piece which led to the color series. And it is not Gainsborough. In this curation, it is the dividing piece which flanks a closing series that Semelroth refers to as a "Show Within A Show." The final five pieces, "Show Within A Show," focus around "personae," assumed, emerging or altered. "Masked Man" (1994) was painted from a sitter who had never appeared out of costume before the artist. It is not just that the clown who so amuses others does not himself seem particularly cheery. That theme was old long before Pagliacci. It is more intriguing that the "Masked Man" was so bound to his veneer. Semelroth's portrait, like any real art, does not offer decided clues or set conclusions. It offers a personality, concealed beneath an assumed persona, and leaves it to the viewer to formulate or discard questions. There are no decisive conclusions. "Crossdressing Draft Resister Who Chanted Hare Krishna for 7 Years" (1995) probably best exemplifies the open-endedness inherent in Semelroth's portrayals and choice of subjects, despite their very specific histories. The artist traveled to Michigan for the expressed purpose of rendering this piece. One of life's contradictions that egalitarianism cannot acknowledge, much less accommodate, is that equality is a theological postulate, not a material or genetic reality. Some people have stronger or more vigorous or more complex personalities. Or they just differ from the conventional expectations. Semelroth often seeks out or chooses his sitters with an eye to what they can reveal. The model for this portrait, in the recent past, has undergone a sex change operation. The artist's instincts present a wealth of human histories worthy of Balzac.
"Imitation a la King" (1996) presents a man whose wife divorced him because of his obsession with singer, Elvis Presley, and who has legally changed his name to that of the deceased music star. The artist himself noted that the sitter bears no resemblance to Presley, other than the costumes he favors. Semelroth has caught some very human proclivity in this portrait. I cannot find any word or rational explanation for it, but it is there and it is fascinating. More explicable is "The Great Emancipator Impersonator" (1998), which is an image of an individual who has a deep interest in Abraham Lincoln and does travel to participate in lectures and simulations of that former president's life. This "Show With A Show" piece harmonizes well with the neighboring "Simulation Santa" (1997). It is a nice touch that the Santa, while having removed his eyeglasses, clearly displays the pressure marks they have left on the bridge of his nose. He has put on the beard and costume, but also removed the one authentic item belonging to the man behind the mask. It is a nice curatorial touch that the final portrait in the gallery, following the bright colors of the "Show Within A Show," is the subdued color pastel, "Self Portrait" (1994). It works as an epilogue. Whether the artist's work embodies what he says, or even what he believes (and one should grant that these are liable to be distinct) the work itself is what must ultimately stand the viewers' judgement. This is one of those exhibitions which one wishes was on-going or accessible at a long-running venue. Much of this is work that bears repeated trips back, and it remains engaging. I have seen Semelroth's varied work in other shows previously. It is worth making a special trip to the Triangle Gallery of Old Town for this one. --G. Jurek Polanski Jurek Polanski has previously written and art edited for Strong Coffee in Chicago. He's also well known and respected among the Chicago museums and galleries. Jurek is currently a Visual Arts Correspondent for ArtScope.net. |
Home | Art Reviews | Bookstore | eArtist | Galleries | RSS
Search | About ArtScope.net | Advertise on ArtScope.net | Contact
