The Dallas Morning News (spring 1990) |
His surreal paintings, like his films, are strange and seductive By
Jane Kutner David Lynch considers himself a failure - as an artist. The acclaimed director, whi was an artist long before he began to make films, only began showing his surreal paintings and drawings about two years ago. A rare exhibit of his recent works opened Saturday at N NO.0 (North Number Zero) Gallery. Mr. Lynch´s art is as strange as his films. There´s an eerie, elusive quality about the work, even when it depicts commonplace images such as airplanes, neighborhoods or flowers. Technically, his paintings and drawings are quite accomplished, with sensuous brushwork in the oils and a nice mellow tone to the pastels. A series of tiny watercolor abstractions are particularly impressive. Mr. Lynch creates subtle relief elements by publishing and pulling on the paper, and he depicts hairline hieroglyphics and grids by scratching into the surface with sharp tools. Even the rather clumsy, naive quality of the drawing in his larger paintings lend strength to the work. Yet despite favorable response from art critics, Mr. Lynch remains dissatisfied with what he has accomplished thus far. "The work has gotten, I hope, a hair more painterly but I´m still not there yet - where I want to be," he says. "They´re all failures in my mind." Mr. Lynch says that he gets a lot of his ideas sitting in coffee shops. But the imagery grows "from (my imagination)," he says. "There´s some kind of dark ... violent mood, but there´s a string of humor in them, too. ... I call (some of) them 'violent comedies'." One large oil painting in the Dallas show aptly fits his description. Even the title, spelled out in cut paper letters attached to the surface, is frightening and funny at the same time: When I Returned There Were Bugs in My House and Fire and Blood in the Streets, By Golly. As in his films, Mr. Lynch has found the dark side of everyday reality. The pitch-black painting depicts a tall stick figure, a sketchy outline of a house with long insect appendages protruding, and a burst of black flames with a splotch of red at one end. The viewer may well feel the urge to laugh, but it´s the kind of nervous laughter that comes as a release of tension. Mr. Lynch´s smaller mixed-media paintings also are distinguished by their otherworldy aura. It results in part from the soft gray palette he prefers, and partly from the indistinct character of the imagery itself. In one oil, a grotesque winged creature hovers above what appears to be a grave. Another painting, with the words "Shallow Grave with Markers" applied in cut paper letters across the bottom, depicts an abstract spirit rising from a pitch-black hole in the ground. The images in other pictures are even more v ague, with some eccentric shapes suggesting parts of the human body and others as ephemeral as a puff of smoke. Regarding the predominant use of grays, he says, "I can´t seem to work in color. I don´t know why. I tried." Mr. Lynch says that he wants his imagery to remain mystifying. The work "deals with feeling and moods," he says. "Gardens, bodies, dogs and airplanes are all part of the work, but it´s also abstract, and it should be left open to interpretation." "How it strikes people is up to them. Each person will see it a hair differently." Mr. Lynch studied art at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., while in high school, and later attended Boston´ Museum of Fine Arts School. He spent four years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and it was there that he ventured into filmmaking. He has said that the only reason he did a film the first time "was to see a painting move." The 44-year-old film maker says that he never stopped making art, but only decided to begin showing it in late 1987, after being encouraged to do so by a Californian art writer. The work he is doing today is "as little bit like what I was doing in school (at the Pennsylvania Academy)," he says. "It was there that some kind of darker, stranger moods started creeping in." His art, like his films, has a seductive quality. His paintings draw viewers into their realm, and take them on what Lynch acknowledges as a journey into the unknown. As in the films, a sense of displacement occurs, and there is the feeling of intense isolation. Mr. Lynch also acknowledges the sensual aspect of some images, and he also sees the cutout letters in the paintings as a carry-over from the narrative tradtion of films. "I like to write things, and I like to have a mood in the painting, and I like the two together," he says. "It seems to double up the impact to me." The timing of the show´s opening here is sheer coincidence. Gallery owner Kerry Freeman and co-curator Janet Miller knew nothing about the premiere of Mr. Lynch´s new television series, Twin Peaks, when they booked the show. Mr. Lynch´s only other one-person exhibit to date have been at the prestigious Leo Castelli Gallery in New York and James Corcoran Gallery in Los Angeles. Clearly Mr. Freeman has scored again - despite his shoestring operation and modest space. As with the recent exhibit of drawings by Architect Aldo Rossi, he got a show that is the envy of far more established galleries merely by having the nerve to ask. Exhibition information "David Lynch: Recent Paintings and Watercolors," through May 12 at N NO.0 Gallery, 1907 Marilla St. Open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and by appointment. Free. Call 748-4561 |