|
|
review by Kevin Nance
|
I’ve lived in several different states over the years, including my native North Carolina, and in none of them did I sense the people’s identification with their state at anything like the intensity of the commonwealth of Kentucky.
We are Kentuckians in a way that Illinoisans and Tennesseans and even Virginians are not on their respective home grounds, and it isn’t hard to see why. Our economic touchstones — the equine and bourbon industries, to name two — are uniquely ours. Appalachian history and culture, though shared with other states, are at their most distinct in Kentucky. And the landscapes of the Bluegrass State from Paducah to Ashland are similarly sui generis. If you’re here, you’re unmistakably nowhere else. In “Oh! Kentucky,” the new Arts Connect themed group exhibit at Central Bank’s John G. Irvin Gallery, artists (mostly painters) from around the commonwealth identify and celebrate the state’s touchstones with varying degrees of skill, depth and originality. As one might expect, there are plenty of horses here, a great many pastoral landscapes, and no small amount of nostalgia; there’s an old-timey, maybe stuck-in-time feel to the way many of the artists here conceive of life in the commonwealth. It’s understandable. |
As modern as, say, much of Lexington architecture is, it’s the city’s Victorian-era homes that we treasure the most, and rightly so. We Kentuckians value our past, and the word historic is always a compliment.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t question or reevaluate our history. That seems to be what Julie Payne is doing in her excellent digital collages on aluminum, “The Service of Your People” and “Boone’s First View,” in which settlers of European descent encounter majestic Native American figures, who come to colorful, vivid life in stark contrast to the monochromatic white folk. Then there’s the gleeful revisionism of Barry Motes’ oil painting “KFC Original Recipe,” which seems to imply that the global success of Kentucky Fried Chicken had at least as much to do with the company’s marketing prowess — in particular its commodification of the image of Col. Harland Sanders, who appears here as a jocular figurine — as with its famous secret recipe of eleven herbs and spices. And if most of the artists in the show are less concerned with interrogating Kentucky, at least they show off their considerable chops as painters. Karen Hudson’s gouache “Sky Bridge, Red River Gorge #3” is wonderfully stylized in a way I associate with landscapes by Marsden Hartley and Georgia O’Keeffe. De Selby’s oil-on-canvas “Shaker Family Reunion,” featuring a trio of sheep in bucolic repose in front of a classic Shaker building adorned with elegant shadows, calls to mind Andrew Wyeth. Banning Lary’s acrylic painting “Stargazers,” featuring lilies fairly vibrating off the canvas, is so intoxicatingly rich that it feels like a detail from an Old Master still life. “Mamaw’s View,” Karen Roland’s oil painting, is a true still life with overtones of early Matisse. Best of all is Jackie Lucas’s “Big Wheels State Fair,” whose enhanced photography captures the thrilling graphics and movement of twin Ferris wheels crazily spinning against a blazing Kentucky sunset, round and round and round. |
