A R T L E T T E R
The Timely Magazine of Art
#39 | <!>previous/ next>!> Artletter index | October 15, 1996 |
Magnificent Pretty Boy at Brasil Cafe 11/1 Intricate, laborious space filling with black and red ballpoint pen on manila envelopes. Each drawing is the result of an accumulation of loosely planned doodles. Much of the visual interest of the work derives from its unusual reversal of colors: the Pretty Boy creates his designs not by drawing lines, but by carving them out, creating white lines and shapes by filling in heavy black pen all around them. Most drawings center on abstracted masklike faces accompanied by stars and dart shaped spaceships, framed by patterned bands of quasi-tribal derivation to form magic T.V. viewing screens. Half-joking free-association captions explicate the hermetic iconography. Rather than illustrating a pre-conceived inner vision, the Pretty Boy's doodles serve as the vehicle for wordplay. It seems as if the pictures come first, then the labels.-B.D. Lee Littlefield at the Art League Sculpture court 10/25 Whose imagination has not transformed the twisted branches of the crepe myrtle into surreal figures? Littlefield burdens these natural, open-ended muings into trivial and silly declarative statements by pruning and painting branches to make obvious the obvious. The melodramatic splashes of blood red paint are almost silly enough to be good.-B.D. Kim O'Grady at West End Gallery 11/1 O'Grady is working up a wicked cool vocabulary for (I am told) larger works later. Twenty-six swatches of different drips, swipes, scrapes, picks, scuffs and glops feel like the revving of the engine before a drag race, each little painting filled with compressed energy which is just waiting to be unleashed on a large scale.I Lied, Alcohol, Ugly Shade of Lovelies, Titty Dancers South and Lack of Vibrant Personality hold luscious technique at arm's length, resisting the romantic urge of weaker works like Spine Loss and Uvula . Kim's best yet.-B.D. Esquivel contemporary art, 2222 Morgan St. 11/1? Inaugural show of another pay-as-you-go, co-op gallery. A tossed salad of unremarkable works by half a dozen artists who paid a moderate fee for their wall space, with no commission taken on sales, no long term committment, and energetic publicity. Go ahead and look; it doesn't cost you anything. Who knows, something interesting might turn up.- B.D. Artletter is available the 1st and 15th of every month at Brazos Bookstore, Lawndale, Glassell School, Inman Gallery, Menil Store, CAM Store, Brazil Cafe, and the MFA bookstore. Mail subscriptions $15/year. Address letters to: Bill Davenport, 801 Tulane St., Houston TX 77007