Another Review of the Mobile Show

Fine Arts
Review: 'Creative Imaginings: The Howard A. and Judith Tullman Collection'
Heather Duffy
Contributing Writer
hnd301@jaguar1.usouthal.edu

November 20, 2006

The Mobile Museum of Art is currently displaying "Creative Imaginings: The Howard A. and Judith Tullman Collection," an exhibition comprised from the Chicago couple's private collection.

The show is made up of representational paintings and drawings, primarily in the mediums of oil, acryic and charcoal. Largely figurative, this exhibition is one of the best examples of contemporary realism to arrive in Mobile in recent years.
Upon entering the gallery, one first notices the vast diversity of narrative subject matter and the large scale of most of the images. Massive canvases line the walls, interspersed with the occasional four-foot-tall drawing.

Aspects of Baroque and Renaissance painting can even be seen, of course, with contemporary twists. Bruno Sardo's "So What Do You Think?" takes an amalgamation of modern day characters (the businessman, the construction worker, etc.) and positions them into a composition reminiscent of Caravaggio's "The Taking of Christ."

Brooklyn-based artist, Sarah Bereza, even shows us a modernized look at a triptych altar piece. The three-paneled painting is adorned with an intricately carved border and wooden pinnacles that point towards the gallery ceiling. Each panel subsequently gives us the view of looking in from the other side of the mirror. Bereza shows the prominance that vanity is given in our time by holding it in the same esteem as that of religion in the Middle Ages. In each panel we see a different young girl, putting on lipstick, pushing her breasts together, putting on eye shadow; each staring into the mirror as devoutly as a monk would observe mass.

While many of the paintings are well-executed, Jennifer Presant's oil painting "Projection, Memory, Desire" surpasses the other works in beauty and technical skill. A nude woman stands in the center of a room, walking forward amidst a floor of scattered magazines. The background converges into a corner behind her as the walls come together. These walls, however, show a different image projected on either one. To the left we see a bedroom in complete disarray. The perspective is skewed; cluttered pillows and sheets fall from the bed, fading together into darkness. To the right, the same woman stands naked, looking away from a man lying on the bed, his forearm almost covering his face. One is immediately overwhelmed with a feeling of loss. These projections are images of a shattered past relationship. The woman in the center is utterly alone with only these fragments of memories. The projections create such a great depth of space that the confines of this small room are stretched out infinitely far.Her subtle caucasian skin tones glow in contrast to the rest of the painting. Painted over an acidic green underpainting, her flesh reads as luminous and soft. The brushstrokes on her body are non-existent. The underpainting shows through in many places, creating a sense of process, and a look at the foundation on which this painting was built. Burnt sienna and Indian red hues play well against the bright green. The background is brushy and soft, with many of the large shapes fading in and out of each other. Value contrast decreases and darkens everything but the central figure, pulling her forward and setting her apart from the loss and sorrow of these projected memories.

This show, of course, is not without its shortcomings. Some of the paintings lack any sort of complexity, and many read as if they are so photo-realistic that they may as well not even be paintings. Some even come off as the tasteless purchasing of an eccentric collector.

Despite these facts, the good aspects of this exhibition completely out-number the bad. This is a fine collection of what is currently happening with figurative realism. Ranging from the elegant and the lovely to the garish and offensive, this show is definitely worth seeing.

Where and When

"Creative Imaginings"


Mobile Museum of Art
Through Jan. 7, 2007

Tickets: $10 for adults; $6 for students
Gallery hours: Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.
Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
More information: 208-5200