The word provocative is loaded with all sorts of meanings and implications.
What provokes some of us won't faze others. People often react to provocation rather than respond, usually emotion-based rather than from a place of reason.
"Provocative Shapes" is a three-artist show at Boswell Mourot Fine Art featuring Virmarie DePoyster, who first grabbed art lovers with her lovely pastel landscapes, painter Laura Raborn and ceramic artist Winston Taylor.
Is the show provocative? Admittedly, that's in the eye of the beholder, but there are images that will invoke, or provoke, an experience.
DePoyster's work has expanded thematically and technically. She shows particular growth in her skillful use of abstraction and textures that give her work heft and depth. Evermore 1 and Evermore 2 ($2,150 each) are landscapes bathed in yellows and golds. Structures are in the distance, almost fortresslike (especially in 1), suggesting a confinement that longs for the spacious freedom the canvas otherwise embraces. The ground's palette also suggests a desert, or parched environment that may be psychological/spiritual deprivation.
Those familiar with her older work will appreciate Prelude to a Kiss ($2,150), one of her loveliest landscapes with billowing, beautiful clouds. But look closer ... the emphasis on sky suggests a yearning for freedom.
Scandalous Season 1, 2 and 3 ($1,575 each), three abstracts that tap floral and plant imagery (evocative of last year's Still in Love works), are achingly lovely in blues and purples.
Raborn's canvases defy and define realism, exploring the very nature of personal and collective reality. Is it a dream? Fantasy? Hallucination? Psychological/emotional states and dramas?
I Found an Apple ($1,800) has two images of a reclining woman biting into an apple. At the bottom left is a small, detailed depiction, while the much larger version is spare in its definition. There are hints of sky and grass, but the setting seems to shift as the woman takes a bite.
Also compelling is Untitled ($1,600), an acrylic and charcoal on canvas, of a seemingly distraught woman, her hand on her mouth. In a sort of stop-motion form, we see at least three versions (psychological shadows?) of this woman. The intensity of her experience seems reflected in this depiction, suggesting a breakdown or possibly disassociation. It is powerful.
The ceramics of Taylor's "Industrial Modern Series" show a skilled artist at the top of his game. Working in raku and pit firing, the wheel-thrown pieces are topped by hand-built tops that evoke machines and architecture, along with geometric shapes.
Whatever he's working in, Taylor's vessels ($595-$995) are pleasing to the eye and offer clues that help us unpack his ideas and artistic influences while at the same time, perhaps, bring us into closer contact with the forces of contemporary society that shape who, and what, we are.
Taylor was named an Arkansas Living Treasure in 2011 by the Arkansas Arts Council. No surprise there -- Taylor and his works are real treasures.
"Provocative Shapes," through Saturday, Boswell Mourot Fine Art, 5815 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock. Hours: 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday. Info: (501) 664-0030, boswellmourot.com.
MORE VIRMARIE ...
DePoyster has a solo exhibit opening at the Arkansas Arts Center, where she is an instructor at the Museum School. "An Artist's Tale: Paintings by Virmarie DePoyster" opens Oct. 28 in the Museum School Gallery.
Arts Center executive director Todd Herman says she "brings together rich and vibrant colors in her artwork. The spontaneous strokes and combination of color will evoke an emotional response by the viewer."
The exhibit hangs through Feb. 15.
"An Artist's Tale," Oct. 28-Feb. 15, Arkansas Arts Center, Ninth and Commerce streets, Little Rock. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. Info: ArkansasArtsCenter.org, (501) 372-4000.
Email:
ewidner@arkansasonline.com
Style on 10/21/2014