Storm Tharp: The Oregonian
John Motley | Special to The Oregonian
on October 07, 2014
In the last half-decade, Portlander Storm Tharp appears to have struggled with the role of painting in contemporary art, deflecting his tremendous gifts as a painter by branching into sculpture, installation and video.
Given how the contemporary art world privileges ideas over execution, this makes perfect sense: It seems Tharp was concerned his virtuosic gifts would eclipse the rigorous intellectual activity that fuels his work. But "Tiger," his 10th solo show at PDX Contemporary, shows the artist embracing the idea that, at heart, he is a painter.
Tharp's fluid and loopy portraits in gouache and ink, which were featured in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, are gone, replaced by portraits and object studies, several in oils, that emphasize more earth-bound depictions of his subjects. This shift plays to his strengths, making "Tiger," which contains some truly exceptional compositions, the most effortless and natural body of work Tharp has shown in Portland.
The show's best paintings are portraits, including two of the artist himself. In one, Tharp appears with his head cocked and tired eyes looking pensively outward at the viewer — no doubt the worried expression of a painter evaluating his canvas and calculating his next move. Painted in clipped daubs, it radiates the whirlwind haste of Lucien Freud, but genuinely channels the uncertainty and anxiety serious artists face as they attempt to evolve their practice.
Sorm-Tharp-Figure with Corners v2 copy.jpegStorm Tharp, "Figure With Corners," 2014, oil on panel, 53" x 42" x 1 1/2".PDX Contemporary Art
Even better is "Figure with Corners," in which Tharp also appears. Here, his back confronts the viewer, while his half-turned face is absorbed and peaceful, possibly asleep. Apart from a silhouette of his shoulders and arms, the remainder of his body is turned over to abstraction, as oblong shapes carve up the picture plane and a central swath of white showcases the finely cross-hatched brushwork.
"Tiger" falters, though, when Tharp attempts to hedge his bets with more clearly conceptual work. A number of paintings seem to represent the artist's studio notebooks, turning lists of observations or potential titles into pictorial subjects. Certainly, these images underutilize his technical gifts, but they also mistake the artist's process as compelling in its own right. It's unclear why Tharp would devote multiple paintings to preserving ephemera from his private experience in the studio. Not only does it fail to significantly differentiate his process from any other artist's, but it invests too much in a tired, art-about-art trope when he clearly has bigger, better ideas to convey.
There's the wonderful "Plum Cosmos," for instance, an image of a hand gently holding a halved plum. Though it's painted with impressive realism, the plum somehow appears abstract, or redolent of other imagery altogether. The fruit's cavity, where its pit has been removed, glistens distantly, like light hitting water in the bottom of a well. It also seems vaguely anatomical and all the more erotic by virtue of its elusive nature. Wrangling sweetness and sexuality, as well as abstraction and verisimilitude, into such a seemingly straightforward picture is no small accomplishment. It's the mark of a real painter.
--John Motley, Special to The Oregonian
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Storm Tharp: "Tiger"
Where: PDX Contemporary Art, 925 N.W. Flanders St., 503-222-0063
Hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays
Closes: Nov. 1
Admission: Free
Website: pdxcontemporaryart.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2014/10/review_storm_tharps_tige...