Portland art blog + news + exhibition reviews + galleries + contemporary northwest art

recent entries

Early September Links
Labor Day Weekend Picks
Museumy Links
Wendy Given at Vernissage
Mid August Links
Grace Kook-Anderson in Conversation
Portland Art Adventures
Early August Art News
August must see picks
End of July News
Alia Ali's Borderland at Bluesky
Mid Summer Reads

recent comments

categories

 

Book Review
Calls for Artists
Design Review
Essays
Interviews
News
Openings & Events
Photoblogs
Reviews
Video
Links
About PORT

regular contributors

 

Tori Abernathy
Amy Bernstein
Katherine Bovee
Emily Cappa
Patrick Collier
Arcy Douglass
Megan Driscoll
Jesse Hayward
Sarah Henderson
Jeff Jahn
Kelly Kutchko
Drew Lenihan
Victor Maldonado
Christopher Moon
Jascha Owens
Alex Rauch
Gary Wiseman

archives

 

Guest Contributors
Past Contributors
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005

contact us

 

Contact us

search

 


syndicate

 

Atom
RSS

powered by

 

Movable Type 3.16

This site is licensed under a

 

Creative Commons License

Friday 09.21.07

« OCAC Centennial | Main | Modelling Behavior »

Darren Waterston and Tyrus Miller :The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense) at Lewis and Clark

water_domev2_fin_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Dome, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

I was surprised to learn that Darren Waterston and Tyrus Miller were working on a series of prints, loosely based, on the experiences of Saint Francis because it is a difficult subject matter. Not only is there a Saint Francis who preaches to the birds but there is also the Saint Francis of the stigmata who also cleans the wounds of the poor with his mouth to overcome his own revulsion. This is a Saint that went looking for the divine in the dark places of the human body, soul, and psyche. Lewis and Clark College, at the Rhona and Eric Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art, is hosting The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense). It is an exhibition of thirteen prints by Darren Waterston accompanied by original broadsides by Tyrus Miller inspired by the life of Francis of Assisi. The prints were created in collaboration with Gallery 16 in San Francisco and is on view until October 21, 2007. A larger exhibition of paintings by Waterston called Constellations is on view as well but The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense) was of particular interest.

water_red_cloud_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Red Cloud, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

Each of us already knows what our bodies look like. There are different proportions, but more or less it's just several limbs, a layer of skin covering a skeleton of bones with various internal organs. That is our body, but is it what we are? Perhaps more than any other, Saint Francis found the divine through the body. He did not find it by looking at the ideal beauty of the ancient Greeks but in the wounds of the lepers and the homeless that surrounded his home in Assisi. He embraced things that we would normally turn away from like the bleeding sores of those who are sick. He resisted the temptation to run away, transcended his natural feelings of self preservation, and cultivated compassion to discover the divine through the path of caring for those around us.

water_skull-orbs-body_fin_7.jpg
Darren Waterston, Body, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

The broadsides and the prints reinforce one another and perhaps, provide a subtle critique of the strength and weakness of each medium. One works with language of images and the other with words. Within an image, because Waterston prints are not explicitly scenes from the life of St. Francis, we are allowed to make our own story. In Miller's text, he provides the story, but we are allowed to imagine what the story looked like. Each demonstrates the limitations of the other and we are constantly navigating between two realms of thought. In this way, I think that the prints and the broadsides work well together and they prevent one or the other from becoming heavy handed.

water_tower_eye_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Eye as Moon, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

Miller's essay in the catalog begins with the best quote by Thomas Celano: "Beware of singularity: it is nothing but a beautiful abyss." It provides the perfect introduction to Waterston's ability to combine multiple layers of meaning of into a single image. Most of the prints usually include one or more references to the stigmata, sometimes to his eyes, and occasionally a skull or full skeleton. My favorite prints are Shadow, which looks like a large swollen eye which can read as relating to St. Francis's difficulties with his eyes and his blindness in later life. The print is saturated with a red and orange circle that has the lines radiating from the center of the circle. The lines makes me think of the ridges that one sees when looking at the iris close up. The radiating lines also have a different perhaps subtler meaning. In the prints, any time person interacts with the divine such as Mount Verna, Leper's Conversion, and Receiving the lines function as physical manifestation of the will of the divine. In each case, except for Shadow, the lines radiate from a center beyond the border of the prints. In Shadow, the lines radiate from the center of the eye, Saint Francis's eye, but it also allows for the potential of the divine to radiate from within each of us. Whether this was intentional or not, only Waterston knows, but it is an interesting way to look at the sequence and images of the prints.

water_shadow_web.jpg
Darren Waterston, Shadow, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

The prints that are less successful are those that are too literal. Weeping is the first one that comes to mind. The crying, isolated skeleton before a Ken Noland/ Ross Bleckner orb of light doesn't take me anywhere and it seems a little heavy handed compared to the light, nonlinear feel of the rest of the prints. The prints are better when they veer away from being illustrations of a particular feeling or experience. A good example of this would be Dome. In Dome, we are confronted a skull floating in an undifferentiated space filled with spheres of light and color. Is the dome the top of the head or the dome of the celestial sky? Waterston never makes it explicitly clear so we are left to draw our own conclusions. He is generous because he lets us finish the story.

water_red-orb_umbria-fin_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Umbria, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

A good example of something that we have to translate through our own experience would be Umbria. Is it a swollen sun? A open wound? A stigmata? We never know and it is up to the viewer to make sense of their own experience but we have the experience directly. It would have been great if there had been a print that transcended the body and human experience to reveal the point of Saint Francis's existence. It might be Heaven, God, or enlightenment but whatever it is, it would have been great for Waterston to show us the other side, the goal that St. Francis was striving for by helping the poor and the sick.

water_weeper_fin_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Weeper, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

I felt like Tyrus Miller walks onto some unstable ground in the catalog when he quotes W.J.T. Mitchell as pictures being intrinsically "wanting." The line of thought that the pictures have both a face, a will and at times, manifesting a stigmata. The implication would be that the pictures have a life beyond our experience of them, that the pictures could exist outside of our experience. If Miller was making that as a serious proposition, I think it misrepresents Waterston's prints and the life of Saint Francis. Yes, by viewing the prints we complete the prints but the prints do not need us to do so, and they are certainly not lacking before that moment. I think what Miller is saying is that the prints have qualities of the body. I wish he would have just left it at that.

water_mt.verna_fin_72.jpg
Darren Waterston, Mount Verna, Pigment print with letterpress and coloring 2007

Perhaps it is no coincidence that Bodies World 3 is on exhibition at OMSI during the same time Waterston prints are up at Lewis and Clark. If we had Hirst's Hymn at the museum we could have made the trifecta. Portland must have a fascination with the inside of our bodies right now. As you can imagine, Waterston prints are an intense look at qualities and experiences that made the man St. Francis. When they are paired with the texts by Miller, they reveal two parallel trains of thought that occasionally collide in the people that walk through the show following in the footsteps of Saint Francis.


Posted by Arcy Douglass on September 21, 2007 at 0:00 | Comments (0)


Comments

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?


s p o n s o r s
Site Design: Jennifer Armbrust   •   Site Development: Philippe Blanc & Katherine Bovee