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| Photo By Miller Gallery |
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Jonathan Queen's "On Top of the World"
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A doll tenderly explains the workings of the human heart to an eagerly listening skull. Bits of recognizable product packaging emerge from carefully woven strips of paper. Mickey Mouse stands before the Grand Canyon in a vacation snapshot. This is a sampling of the exciting new work currently on display at Miller Gallery by Jonathan Queen, Jonpaul Smith and Rob Jefferson.
Queen's meticulously painted still lifes also function on a narrative level. In them, vintage toys often interact or carry allegorical meaning. "On Top of the World" depicts a 1950s astronaut bobblehead standing on a globe before a backdrop of an American flag's embroidered stars. The toy is strategically placed on top of the United States, inviting the viewer to consider a cynical political message.
"First View of Florence" acts as Queen's self-portrait. A Pinocchio figure stands on two books about the Italian Renaissance. A panorama of Florence, painted as three trompe l'oeil photographs tacked onto a wall, stretches before the doll, which leans eagerly toward the Duomo, Florence's famous cathedral. The image shows us the roots of Queen's art in the Renaissance masters and captures the emotions he felt when visiting Italy for the first time.
"Full" depicts Big Boy, the Frisch's restaurant icon -- an image Queen has painted frequently -- looking like his plump body is about to burst through the walls of the shadowbox in which he stands, a bold comment on our overindulgent consumer culture.
Some of Jonpaul Smith's woven mixed-media pieces share a connection to our commercial culture as well. In "Bigg's," Smith has woven together strips of found product packaging. When looking closely, the viewer discovers bits of recognizable brands, but when taken as a whole the work is a lively jumble of brash primary colors, the palette of consumerism.
Smith doesn't always use found paper, however -- he also makes his own relief prints, cuts them into strips and weaves them together, as in his "Black on White, White on Black." Unlike the colorful "Bigg's," this work carries a unified palette of blacks, whites and grays. It also gives the illusion of three-dimensional space with strips of paper that grow smaller toward the center of the image. Regardless of whether the weavings are made of found or original prints, Smith's work doesn't offer a single focal point, which makes looking at it a challenging and stimulating experience.
Jefferson's work encourages the viewer to make connections between seemingly disparate images. He strings together several small canvases, suggesting they should be read as a linear narrative, like a comic book or storyboard. Painted to resemble black-and-white found and manipulated photographs, his imagery is mysterious, humorous and often surreal.
In "Poor Boys and Pilgrims," Jefferson links together images that are strangely familiar but indefinable at the same time. Among the scenes are a woman changing a tire with her skirt lifted up over her hips, a man who resembles Johnny Cash playing a guitar and singing into a microphone and some young Punk rockers walking through a desolate landscape. The composition of each "frame" guides the eye to the right, leading the viewer on a journey, like a pilgrim.
Jefferson also makes individual paintings. "Sigh (Gone)" uses the familiar photograph of a North Vietnamese man's execution as its source. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photo by Eddie Adams helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War. In his painting, however, Jefferson has replaced the man being shot with a flying white dove, and has also removed the gun from the executioner's hand. Like the title -- which is, of course, a play on the word "Saigon" -- Jefferson's paintings slightly alter our collective cultural memory. Grade: A
THREE CINCINNATI ARTISTS is on view at Miller Gallery in Hyde Park Square through May 26.
