Dennis Hollingsworth

"seriousness"-brown

In the same way a writer must possess a "voice", an artist (painter) will know that they are hunting big game when they finally possess their own vision, a "voice" in painterly terms. After much labor in the effort to enlarge that personal vision, or what may be called a signature style, the time comes for a personal revolution. A static vision goes blind eventually.

Change in this case is not only good, it's required. Change is also dangerous. If the change is flagrant, the voice is gone and the artist is lost... for the whole world to witness, sadly enough. But when an artist makes a turn that not only plows new ground but also hauls the older project along for the transformative ride... this is simply marvelous.

Michael Reafsnyder has done it. A turn to marvel at.

Here is one of his paintings, a point of reference:

Bronze, I am not sure why other than to say I think it had to do with what my paintings would look like in the language of "seriousness"-brown. Funny enough, the few who have seen them bring up the serious term and how they force people who refuse to take my paintings as something other than ironic, sarcastic, etc. to look again. I do not do the work myself. I found a great place called F & M in Buena Park. Fantastic work and inexpensive. Much cheaper than the few "art" foundries in Los Angeles. These guys think I am crazy, but, are very sensitive and attentive to my lack of knowledge and desires. The ceramics initially came prior to the bronze work, although I am still working on them now. First I made figurines, trying to make the painting characters 3-D. They are quite nuts, mermaids and all. The plates came as a natural progression, or regression, and I think really force paint and all of its tricks to move the the forefront and not act as addition, but accumulation and subtraction. Dimensionality was difficult to achieve, but, I have finally figured it out.

What I like about this is that compared to, say, the great David Reed and his video/installation turn, Michael Reafsnyder has folded one legacy media form into another legacy media form. That's much better (after David Reed has popped his wheely thusly) than a computer-plus-flat screen TV gig or somesuch next generation media geegaw*.

Brilliant, Miichael.

You can see Michael's new work at Los Angeles' Chinatown's Black Dragon Society, 916 Chung King Road.

* ...like this here blog, Dennis?