Quad City Arts in Rock Island currently has the most inspired artistic pairing I've witnessed in quite some time. Thaddeus Erdahl's and Susan Mart's work forms an exhilarating one-two punch. Their uses of subtle colors and their shaping of forms within their chosen media generate an energetic call-and-response between their works and throughout the gallery. This dynamic show is the kind of visual espresso that should send us artists scurrying back to our studios to feverishly try to bring life to our own creations.
Thaddeus Erdhal's mixed-media and ceramic installations could be described as a playful blend of director Tim Burton's disturbing visuals, Edward and Nancy Kienholz's commanding and disconcerting artistic installations, Fred Rogers' infectious serenity, and Norman Rockwell's supreme ability to capture mood, expression, and personality.
His figures have an iconic clarity and distinct look that are reminiscent of many of the visuals that make Burton's films such a feast for the eyes. There is a subtle, yet possibly more serious, undertone to some of Erdahl's sculptures that elicits comparisons to the Kienholzs' installations, such as Roxy's (an artistic re-creation of a bordello) and The State Hospital (which shows an emaciated figure with a fish-bowl face, in a bunk bed contemplating its own horrific existence). But all of the smiles, good posture, and splashes of color on the surfaces bring a kind of levity to the whole viewing experience that is far more like the warm feeling you get in the realm of Rogers and Rockwell.
In the piece Informal Discussion with a Political Analyst, Erdhal has sculpted the ceramic upper torso of a man wearing two tattered sock puppets on his arms, which are arced back toward his face participating in a lively three-way discussion. The base of the body is formed from several old suitcases stacked on their sides. Although the suitcases could make allusions to something less lighthearted than a traveling salesman/shyster/vaudevillian type of person (possibly a mentally ill or homeless person, which would be the kind of darker subject that you would see in something like Kienholzs' works), Erdahl's sensitivity to his materials masterfully imbues the clay with a presence and vitality that delivers us the more playful interpretation of a self-involved bombast lost in pointless discourse with himself.
Because Erdahl only included the upper half of the torso, and didn't waste any visual energy on extra buttons or folds in the shirt, he distilled the essential visual information and directed our attention solely to the dialogue between the face and the sock puppets. Erdahl seems to be very conscientious about the amount of visual detail that is needed to present an idea with profound eloquence and economy.
His glazes are thoughtfully splotchy and runny in the right places to provide that appropriate feel of soft and surreal watercolors. Bold glazes or large monochromatic patches would undermine the spontaneous mood and dream-like quality that Erdahl seems to achieve so effortlessly. The weathered wooden components of his installations, along with his visual wit, complement his rough and textured use of the clay. When all of these ingredients come together, they form an energy that penetrates the environment around them and actively engage the viewer.
In his piece The Problem with Long Distance Relationships, Erdahl displays a rare kind of confidence and insight. The lower end of this sculpture is a platform with the ceramic torso of a lonely woman with pointed and nearly forgotten breasts. She is staring longingly up a ladder, which physically isolates her, to another platform, where there is a telephone and an outstretched arm holding the telephone receiver. The arm is a muted aqua-green and has grooves running down its length. No real arm looks like this. However, this use of color and texture only adds to the mood of loneliness and isolation. Erdahl has the confidence and the skill to use simplified forms that convey the essence of an arm without overburdening piece with the slavish devotion to lifeless verisimilitude.
Susan Mart's artwork is a stunning example of how the whole can be greater than its parts. Her images are constructed by using several small, intimately illustrated panels, arranged together to form a larger yet loosely constructed image. The building blocks of her work are usually small blocks made from paper - roughly the dimensions of a box a bracelet would come in. The surface of each block is meticulously illustrated with graphite and colored pencils in a surprisingly open and airy way. These blocks are displayed in grids that allow each square to preserve its own identity while also participating in a energetic and rhythmic visual dialogue with its neighbors.
In the jubilant work Gatherings, this gestalt image is composed from 100 different blocks arranged with 10 blocks on each side. Mart has cultivated a veritable smorgasbord of shapes and colors, including tan twigs wrapped with fabric, blue and orange ornaments, azure labyrinths, kelly-green ferns, crimson leaves, gray stone blocks, and several panels with indecipherable dynamic masses of color and texture. Any one of these panels succeeds with its own visual integrity. However, as a group they achieve a type of visual critical mass that expands the dialogue throughout the group as well as energizes them individually. They pulse with a sense of vitality and carry with them the tension of a sharp inhalation.
Her images feel like dynamic snapshots of the mind remembering bits and pieces of a place or a time without being too specific or too literal. These fragments assemble themselves into a new experience when viewed as a whole that speaks to both their original existence and this newly created reality. Mart's crisp presentation and muted color palette allow you to construct your own sensation of remembrance right along with her. The ambiguities within the various panels lend themselves to the sensation of a place or experience just on the cusp of memory, not necessarily something specific or didactic.
Although many of the tiles are very colorful, they avoid any kind of discord that might come from being garish or obnoxious. Instead they are bursting with soft greens, browns, ochres, rusts, salmons, yellows, and terra cottas. The colored papers and use of colored pencils lend to a quality that moves beyond documentation of a place or time and delivers us to a satisfyingly disjointed re-telling of the event or location. They are rooted in observations of reality, but their construction and their presentation allow them to evolve into a misty surreality.
By contrast to all of the colors and visual tension found in Gatherings, Mart's Fragments provides a chance to exhale. The larger and more simplified forms such as clouds, arcs, angels, textures, and grasses, along with the more muted color pallette of subtle grays, browns, whites, and ochres, create a subtle mood of melancholy. The piece feels like a reminiscence about a rural late-summer afternoon in a favorite nook. This change of mood and tempo speaks to Mart's personal explorations within this genre and her empathy and mastery of her materials. She moves gracefully from the almost frantic rhythms of Gatherings to the nonchalant pacing of Fragments.
Both Erdahl and Mart display a profound sensitivity to their materials and their subject matter. Their understanding of how to maximize initial visual impact as well as enrich its resonance is extraordinary. Their colors, textures, and forms complement each other's work well.
Some exhibits you just see. This exhibit provides you with an opportunity to immerse yourself.
Thaddeus Erdhal's mixed-media and ceramic installations could be described as a playful blend of director Tim Burton's disturbing visuals, Edward and Nancy Kienholz's commanding and disconcerting artistic installations, Fred Rogers' infectious serenity, and Norman Rockwell's supreme ability to capture mood, expression, and personality.
His figures have an iconic clarity and distinct look that are reminiscent of many of the visuals that make Burton's films such a feast for the eyes. There is a subtle, yet possibly more serious, undertone to some of Erdahl's sculptures that elicits comparisons to the Kienholzs' installations, such as Roxy's (an artistic re-creation of a bordello) and The State Hospital (which shows an emaciated figure with a fish-bowl face, in a bunk bed contemplating its own horrific existence). But all of the smiles, good posture, and splashes of color on the surfaces bring a kind of levity to the whole viewing experience that is far more like the warm feeling you get in the realm of Rogers and Rockwell.
In the piece Informal Discussion with a Political Analyst, Erdhal has sculpted the ceramic upper torso of a man wearing two tattered sock puppets on his arms, which are arced back toward his face participating in a lively three-way discussion. The base of the body is formed from several old suitcases stacked on their sides. Although the suitcases could make allusions to something less lighthearted than a traveling salesman/shyster/vaudevillian type of person (possibly a mentally ill or homeless person, which would be the kind of darker subject that you would see in something like Kienholzs' works), Erdahl's sensitivity to his materials masterfully imbues the clay with a presence and vitality that delivers us the more playful interpretation of a self-involved bombast lost in pointless discourse with himself.
Because Erdahl only included the upper half of the torso, and didn't waste any visual energy on extra buttons or folds in the shirt, he distilled the essential visual information and directed our attention solely to the dialogue between the face and the sock puppets. Erdahl seems to be very conscientious about the amount of visual detail that is needed to present an idea with profound eloquence and economy.
His glazes are thoughtfully splotchy and runny in the right places to provide that appropriate feel of soft and surreal watercolors. Bold glazes or large monochromatic patches would undermine the spontaneous mood and dream-like quality that Erdahl seems to achieve so effortlessly. The weathered wooden components of his installations, along with his visual wit, complement his rough and textured use of the clay. When all of these ingredients come together, they form an energy that penetrates the environment around them and actively engage the viewer.
In his piece The Problem with Long Distance Relationships, Erdahl displays a rare kind of confidence and insight. The lower end of this sculpture is a platform with the ceramic torso of a lonely woman with pointed and nearly forgotten breasts. She is staring longingly up a ladder, which physically isolates her, to another platform, where there is a telephone and an outstretched arm holding the telephone receiver. The arm is a muted aqua-green and has grooves running down its length. No real arm looks like this. However, this use of color and texture only adds to the mood of loneliness and isolation. Erdahl has the confidence and the skill to use simplified forms that convey the essence of an arm without overburdening piece with the slavish devotion to lifeless verisimilitude.
Susan Mart's artwork is a stunning example of how the whole can be greater than its parts. Her images are constructed by using several small, intimately illustrated panels, arranged together to form a larger yet loosely constructed image. The building blocks of her work are usually small blocks made from paper - roughly the dimensions of a box a bracelet would come in. The surface of each block is meticulously illustrated with graphite and colored pencils in a surprisingly open and airy way. These blocks are displayed in grids that allow each square to preserve its own identity while also participating in a energetic and rhythmic visual dialogue with its neighbors.
In the jubilant work Gatherings, this gestalt image is composed from 100 different blocks arranged with 10 blocks on each side. Mart has cultivated a veritable smorgasbord of shapes and colors, including tan twigs wrapped with fabric, blue and orange ornaments, azure labyrinths, kelly-green ferns, crimson leaves, gray stone blocks, and several panels with indecipherable dynamic masses of color and texture. Any one of these panels succeeds with its own visual integrity. However, as a group they achieve a type of visual critical mass that expands the dialogue throughout the group as well as energizes them individually. They pulse with a sense of vitality and carry with them the tension of a sharp inhalation.
Her images feel like dynamic snapshots of the mind remembering bits and pieces of a place or a time without being too specific or too literal. These fragments assemble themselves into a new experience when viewed as a whole that speaks to both their original existence and this newly created reality. Mart's crisp presentation and muted color palette allow you to construct your own sensation of remembrance right along with her. The ambiguities within the various panels lend themselves to the sensation of a place or experience just on the cusp of memory, not necessarily something specific or didactic.
Although many of the tiles are very colorful, they avoid any kind of discord that might come from being garish or obnoxious. Instead they are bursting with soft greens, browns, ochres, rusts, salmons, yellows, and terra cottas. The colored papers and use of colored pencils lend to a quality that moves beyond documentation of a place or time and delivers us to a satisfyingly disjointed re-telling of the event or location. They are rooted in observations of reality, but their construction and their presentation allow them to evolve into a misty surreality.
By contrast to all of the colors and visual tension found in Gatherings, Mart's Fragments provides a chance to exhale. The larger and more simplified forms such as clouds, arcs, angels, textures, and grasses, along with the more muted color pallette of subtle grays, browns, whites, and ochres, create a subtle mood of melancholy. The piece feels like a reminiscence about a rural late-summer afternoon in a favorite nook. This change of mood and tempo speaks to Mart's personal explorations within this genre and her empathy and mastery of her materials. She moves gracefully from the almost frantic rhythms of Gatherings to the nonchalant pacing of Fragments.
Both Erdahl and Mart display a profound sensitivity to their materials and their subject matter. Their understanding of how to maximize initial visual impact as well as enrich its resonance is extraordinary. Their colors, textures, and forms complement each other's work well.
Some exhibits you just see. This exhibit provides you with an opportunity to immerse yourself.
