5/08/2006

Catherine Howe

15 comments:

flesheater99 said...

that's one busted-ass grill.

kinda looks like the little guy living in the stomach of that cat from Total Recall--his name was Giotto or something.

Michael Cross said...

Hideous. (Or head-ious?) Anyway, this style or ruse of using skilled academic tecnique to contrast with (supposedly) shocking content is too artificial, and comes across as coy and inauthentic. It strikes me as an experiment in how to make a painting, and not a from-the-gut REAL painting.

triple diesel said...

"Coyness is nice/and coyness can stop you/from saying all the things in
life you want to..."

What's wrong with being coy? Anyway, it's appropriate in these Colossi paintings to render historical icons in a historical way. Plus, they aren't shocking...are they?

CH uses the crumbling Colossi as symbols of aging and shifting prominence. Kind of sad, self-deprecating, and personal; and not so coy.

Reminds us of Nicole Eisenman painting: "From Success to Obscurity" and also of Lot's Wife. You know, the whole woman-statue relation. Kiki Smith, too?

"So ask me, ask me, ask me..."

Michael Cross said...

Triple D, your first line quote answers the question of what's wrong with being coy, at least where art is concerned. Appropriate? That word shouldn't be part of an art discussion.

And, no this is not a shocking image, but I think it is intended to be. Kiki Smith intends to be... and is. Powerfully so.

no-where-man said...

TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World ? now THAT is a family with a little pedigree.

triple diesel said...

"Appropriate" as an adjective, similar to "fitting" or "suitable." Seems okay to me.

Max said...

I have a theory that surreal images are best painted in as unreal a manner as possible. The failure of a lot of early surreal art, in my mind, is that it looses the transcendent quality it is trying to capture via realistic presentation. I'm talking about Dali, Magritte, Escher; to me these artists were less effective than they could have been because they could not extract themselves from their realistic urges. In viewing their pieces, we cannot access the information in a way that it effects us deeply, because it is processed in a segment of our mind that is devoted to observing the ordinary.

To my eye, there is a fine line between abstract and figurative presentation where you can hit the sweet spot and really make something believably transcendent. When you see a work like that, it just hums, seems divine.

Stelios Argiros said...

Interesting paintings. They have a sort of Amy Sillman, DaVinci, Dali thing going on. Sillman for the palette for the ones scratching their heads. I'd like to see one of these heads with their eyes open. They all seem to be like reflective swimmers!? Strange. Of course there is the whole surreality going on so nothing should make sense. I would like to see more tension, probably more emotional range. Maybe a painting with many women would be a nice break in the series.
Claire Oliver looks like a decent gallery. I especially, jpeg-wise, like Amy Morken. Those are rockin' paintings.

no-where-man said...

Colossus of Rhodes - or the head of the statue of liberty with the crown below as we shall see it (my guess) some day shortly

zipthwung said...

Fermented heads? Drunken birds? The worms crawl in and the worms crawl out, then you do the hokey pokey.

All about draught.

zipthwung said...

help

zipthwung said...

lovely

Even after the flood, there is life.

truthiness is out there

youth--less said...

it's a gruenwald laura palmer. I have to like it for its ultra weirdness

Stelios Argiros said...
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Stelios Argiros said...

bluebalz said... "sillman, davinci, dali? amys good but please."

I was not making a quality judgement on Howe's and these other artists' work. It's just the other artists' styles came to mind when I saw her work.