John
Buck: Recent Sculpture and Woodblock Prints
Lewis & Clark College, Gallery of Contemporary Art
0615 SW Palatine Hill Road, 768-7693
Opens Oct. 7
Where does the anima in art come from? What makes one artist's
work more alive than another's? John Buck, sculptor, printmaker
and woodcarver, provides an invigorating clue in this mystery.
His new exhibition at Lewis & Clark's Gallery of Contemporary
Art ties in with the unveiling of two permanent sculptures
there. Possessing tremendous life force and spirit, the show
reminds you of what art can do.
All the work you'll see here displays technical virtuosity,
but that alone is never enough. You may also notice that
Buck uses a common strategy: assembled parts patched together
to form a quasi-narrative. So why is it, then, that Buck's
work is so compelling?
Because John Buck works. Actively. Everything here
is carved by hand to create large assemblages of figures
with a rotating palette of forms (masks, dung beetles, caged
birds).
One piece, Coral Gables, nearly 12 feet tall, succeeds
by its simplicity. Mysterious and beautiful, it contains
three elements: A female figure holds a mask; a cornucopia
balances on one shoulder; and a large, three-pronged leaf
sprouts from the other. Another piece, The 1990s, succeeds
for the opposite reason, striking a precarious balance between
overflowing imagery and craft. An espaliered branch curlicues
into a large loop from the shoulders of the figure. Balanced
on either side are various forms--a Greek head, a column
and a stepped fret. The jumble of images works compositionally
and symbolically. At first I thought that the title
suggested the humdrum we've endured in the past decade,
but as I looked longer, its meanings ran deeper. The piece
exists fully in his own time; the artist sidesteps mere
topicality and is, instead, totally engaged with his artistic
meditation.
Buck is also a master printer of richly layered block prints.
Up to 62 inches in height and multicolored, they have a
depth rarely seen in woodblock. The Argosy, a large
image of a tuber suspended by toothpicks in a jar of water,
gives way to an almost invisible lattice of imagery in the
background. As in a medieval illuminated manuscript of despair,
skeletal figures prance through the background. On the top
portion of the print, the misery-ridden characters give
way to an insanely happy Mickey Mouse.
Some of the work does become a bit much under the jumble
of image and symbol. But the gallery is filled with such
quietly forceful works that this slight flaw shouldn't be
a distraction.
John Buck: Recent Sculpture and Woodblock Prints is
one of those shows that remind you of what an artist does.
Buck walks the line between beauty and chaos, creating work
that contains craft, thoughtfulness and a little grist for
the mill. Perhaps it is this tightrope act that creates
the anima in art.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 13,
1999
|
