Critical Review of Entre le chien et le loup - Essay Example

? Critical Review of “Entre le chien et le loup number Introduction David R. Harper is an emerging artist withfocus on embroidery and sculpture especially with taxidermy based pieces. Harper’s exhibition at the Doris McCarthy Gallery titled “entre chien et loup” presents the artist’s work pieces prepared over the course of a year (Doris McCarthy Gallery, 2013). Essentially Harper’s work presents stark contrasts sourced from eclectic sources. The artist’s works use eclectic means of expression including embroidery and sculpture that are enhanced by the use of contrasting colors and presentation techniques. Each piece by Harper presents contrasts of various forms – some subtle and some very sharp. The exhibition’s title “entre chien et loup” refers to daytime just before the onset of night when light is minimized so that visual distinction is not really possible. The title of the exhibition itself reveals much about the artist’s intentions that are focused on interplaying contrasts so that contrasts are developed and downplayed throughout the exhibition. Critique The most noticeable contrast in Harper’s work lies in the use of color – while Harper’s embroidery is colored richly, his sculptures are done in a few colors only. The artist’s piece titled “I tried, I tried, and I tried” is essentially a reproduction of “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques Louis David where he uses rich colors to depict a historical event. In contrast, other works from Harper espouse a seemingly small range of colors that can be segregated as white, black, shades of grey and shades of blue. The contrast between the use of colors in these pieces can be traced to the historical foundation of Harper’s work. The artist tends to use a rich variety of colors for the historical piece but uses seemingly few colors for pieces that represent contemporary issues including the artist’s personal history in pieces such as “Then We are Lost Forever in the Gloaming”. This clearly represents the artist’s unconscious perspective on modern life being dull and composed of a few colors in contrast to his conception of the past as being richly colored. In addition, the artist tends to associate closely with historical painters such as Jacques Louis David and their works. “I tried, I tried, and I tried” seems to depict a historical event even though Napoleon’s actual march through the Alps was not as brilliant as portrayed (Harvey, 2006). Harper has changed the color of the horse noticeably, providing it with strong shades of black and grey. This could be considered tantamount to rewriting history from the perspective of the artist using embroidery. Harper seems to be embedded into historical events to the extent that he tries to rewrite them, in an effort to become part of such glorious history. In contrast to Harper’s historical works, his works associated with the contemporary realm offer interesting perspectives on contrast, making it both sharp and gradual. Harper’s piece titled “To Remind, or to Warn” is the most glaring example on stark contrast presented by the artist. The piece is deceitfully simple and presents two wolves, one purely white and the other purely black, placed on cubical foundations. Interestingly, the foundations for the pieces are constructed of three bricks composed along the length and the breadth that provide for pure equality in both foundations. Built on top of these equal foundations are a white wolf, that is perched higher than the black wolf, on pieces of rock. While the white wolf glares down with a neutral design, the black wolf is shown howling up in the air with signs of aggression. The foundations it seems represent man’s birth – everyone is born equally, neither good nor bad. The wolves on top seem to represent good and evil. Traditional association dictates that the white wolf stands for good and so is perched higher and in a neutral posture. In contrast, the black wolf represents evil and is perched lower and in a bellicose posture. The absence of any shades of grey symbolizes that the artist holds right and wrong distinctly different and believes that there is no ground for commonality between both. Harper’s work presents some sense of protectionism too which can be seen embedded in symbolism and the use of certain metaphors. The use of white and black colors to demarcate right and wrong and to distinguish them clearly reflects that Harper believes in the eventual superiority over right over wrong. This tends to provide psychological protection in Harper’s work, since it signals that all wrongs will be avenged. Moreover, Harper also uses certain metaphoric arrangements to hint at protectionism such as the use of taxidermic sculpture heads of three calves and a moose in his piece titled “Then We are Lost Forever in the Gloaming”. These sculpture heads are placed high on spikes supported by figurines on either ends of the arrangement. In between are many piked heads of birds, mostly geese. The overall arrangement poses as if the calf and moose heads are protecting the many geese heads in between them. However, there is another layer to this work since the moose’s head is black while the calf’s heads are white. These metaphors signal to the artist’s desire to explain that not all protectors are essentially good in character but instead there is evil lurking even in places of protection. Interestingly enough, the artist uses the color grey for the sculpture heads of the geese indicating that he considers this color neutral or innocent in his narrative of good and bad. In contrast to the use of distinct color tones, Harper’s works also display the use of choroplethic arrangements of color which point to gradual contrasts. When compared to Harper’s works using distinct color tones, these works use transitioning colors and in doing so eliminate sharp contrast. Instead, Harper seems to display a certain dislike for sharp contrasts in such pieces altogether. The artist’s piece titled “Eleven Less the Range Between Us” showcases flags arranged horizontally and painted in various shades of blue starting with a dark royal blue and ending with a light aquatic blue. The flags have been painted such that it is hard to distinguish them out of their choropleth arrangement as distinct pieces. Pieces such as these do not eliminate the premise of contrast in Harper’s work but only serve to make the contrast more gradual in character. Much similar to this piece stands Harper’s work titled “A Fear of Unknown Origins” where masks of animal faces have been arranged at random in horizontal and vertical lines to form a continuous arrangement. This arrangement, like before, has been painted in transition starting out with a dark royal blue to a light aquatic blue. The transition occurs laterally rather than vertically which signals that Harper may be trying to indicate lateral differences in society rather than focusing on vertical divisions such as class. Utilizing a plethora of masks serves as a metaphor for vast swaths of human beings inhibiting the planet while the transitioning blue color tends to indicate differences in their character. Again, the artist tends to point to good and evil yet the transition and the contrast are both more gradual than in other pieces. Moreover, the use of animal masks to represent human beings indicates that Harper sees human beings essentially as sophisticated animal forms in various shades of blue. Conclusion Harper’s works cannot be viewed or analyzed as some form of personal disconnect from society at large even though it is the artist’s personal expressionism at work. The recurring themes of Harper’s works remain contrast in modern society as well as the contrast between good and evil. Harper’s works can be understood best by considering Janet Wolff statement (Davis, 2005, p. 173): “Works of art … are not closed, self-contained and transcendent entities, but are the product of specific historical practices on the part of identifiable social groups in given conditions, and therefore bear the imprint of the ideas, values and conditions of existence of those groups, and their representatives in particular artists.” References Davis, G. (2005). The Ideology of the Visual. In M. Rampley, Exploring Visual Culture: Definitions, Concepts, Contexts (pp. 163-178). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Doris McCarthy Gallery. (2013). David R. Harper. Retrieved March 14, 2013, from UTSC: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~dmg/html/exhibitions/index.html Harvey, R. (2006). The War of Wars. Robinson. Read More