Letters
To the Editor
February 13, 2003
Dear Free Weekly,
Please thank Maryevelyn Jones for the insightful, well-written article.
Sincerely,
Steven Wise
The Artist’s Eye
A Portrait Interview
Fayetteville Free Weekly
by Maryevelyn Jones
February 6, 2003
Painter and adjunct professor Steven Wise brought himself, Dan Schimmel, Nick Cassaway, and James Rosenthal together for a Walton Art Center show called “Perfect Fit.” I drew Steven while he explained to me why the current show at the Walton Art Center came about.
“There are a lot of institutions that are underfunded and don’t have means to seek out work. So, I realized that if I put together a show I could probably get people to put it on,” Steven said. “The voice of the show really was developed after having decided to do this. Some of us had never met.”
Steven went to school in Little Rock and went to school in Philadelphia. When the idea for a show occurred, Steven called a fellow artist and friend in Philadelphia. This friend contacted two other artists. Then slides of art went back and forth between these four artists. They compared each other’s body of work seeking those paintings that looked best with the other artists. This comparison and contemplation of each other’s art brought an obvious common bond to their attention.
These four artists fit together perfectly through a common admiration and style of Philip Guston. Guston lived from 1913-1980, painted abstract expressionism alongside Jackson Pollock in the 60’s, and later developed an array of representational images out of his personal abstract style. Like Guston, the four artist of “Perfect Fit” create their own abstract and representational images portraying social commentary.
“There’s a kind of interest in imagery of the figure but not representational figures, an interest in humor and sarcasm, a kind of drawing style like Guston that’s part popular culture and part cartoon images.” It seemed to amaze Steven that among the four of them “all that was just kind of coincidental luck.”
All four artists express interesting cultural statements. Dan Schimmel’s pairs of eyes show complex emotion without showing bodies or faces. Nick Cassaway’s lines vibrate simultaneous anxiety and playfulness. James Rosenthal’s cartoon WWII warships expose a popular culture idealism of war that overpowers individualism.
Of his personal work, Steven Wise chose three small abstract studies and three large more serious paintings. Inspired by Guston, Steven chooses another set of colors and shapes that become the personal language of involved paintings. Describing his form of painting as a waffle effect from one painting to another, Steven told me that he uses small abstract paintings to think through the parts and ideas of his big paintings. He shows fun with colors like green and shapes that indicate clouds and water in the small paintings. The small paintings develop thought out forms for future large works. Clouds, which Steven loves looking at, appear in all six of these exhibited paintings. It’s easy to see how the simple idea or cloud shape has become a symbol of varied meanings in his painting called “Coming Together.” One meaning could be the cartoon conversation cloud over the crowd like shapes thinking of a celebration.
Steven titled my favorite piece in the exhibit “In Praise of Two Kings.” This painting took 3 years of mental exploration to paint. Steven invites the viewer to enter this painting from the bottom of the canvas with a polaroid of a Picasso next to a slice of watermelon.
Using paintings to drive the point of illusions Steven said: “I see painting as an art form that is about making a false image of something else,” He then pointed out his interest in the notion that “all paintings are indebted to its history of being an art of making an illusion.”
The “Perfect Fit” is on display until Feb. 15.