How do we create an identity? Is it through what we apply from the outside or what we project from within? Gallery Neptune invited four artists to explore this theme in “See What You Want to See”.
Elaine Langerman achieves success in her mixed media work by grouping pictures of familiar objects such as candy, commercial logos, animals, children and stars within the same composition to evoke dream like environments. Heavily painted in acrylics and sometimes using reflective mediums, her work for “See What You Want to See” consistently includes images of the tabs found exclusively on paper doll clothes. We find them attached not only to clothing, but also to the figures themselves, the environment, and sometimes detached and floating about the picture plane. The tabs suggest a method of securing an identity but what exactly makes us feel identified? Is it clothing, personality or environment? Maybe the tabs are meant to be relinquished; eventually liberating us from the former roles we think we need to substantiate our existence.
Ed Bisese, an area artist known for his exaggerated characterizations, submits a series of portraits of men he calls “Supamonstas”. Large profiles are cut from thin sheets of wood and developed with paint and strips of woven paper. A superhero appears in the foreground as the apparent alter ego. Muscular, brave and with a full head of hair, the idealized figure superimposes the everyday man, even though he appears only one third the size. Facing the same direction, both profiles maintain their intensity. “Super” yes, but “Monster” implies the adage “be careful what you wish for”.
Mark Behme’s extraordinary wood sculptures heavily rooted in symbolism and which were exhibited in April of 2007 are once again presented at Neptune this time through a series of small wooden heads. In “Judge and Jury” a young delinquent stares to the right. Present through the opening of his turned around cap, a third identical eye joins the gaze. Opening his cap, a carved replica of a gun’s chamber is revealed, loaded with actual bullets. Permission is given to study the criminal mind and we are spooked by the close range the artist gives us. How many of us could harbor criminal thoughts and how hard would it be to mask our agenda? Another work, “Memory” depicts a street thug, solitary and ominous. Yet by removing the hair, we see that the artist has set a tiny curled up dog inside the imposing character’s head. A striking contrast occurs through both imagery and color intensity. Through the delicate “Memory” of this otherwise imposing figure, we learn that tenderness is at his core.
Fashion photographer Violetta Manavis makes her gallery debut with a series of photographs exploiting food and sex. The series features models wearing skimpy costumes made of faux fruits and vegetables, set amongst real food and provocatively “served” in each photograph as separate courses in a five course meal. At this point in “See What You Want to See” we are presented with the same sort of bait we encounter in ads everywhere. From cars to clothes to perfume to food, seduction is hard to ignore. By exaggerating the very work she is involved with on a commercial level, Manavis plays with her technical skills to create a response. By viewing this kind of photography in a gallery setting we are invited to analyze the more formal elements of design and appreciate the staged compositions as art rather than a strategy to get our attention.